This was the start of the 2012 around New Caledonia yacht race. The 600 nautical mile race course goes southeast, beating into the wind, around the southern end of Grande Terre, and then up the east coast of Grande Terre with a following wind, around the northernmost branch of the world's second largest barrier coral reef, and then beats hard into the wind down the west coast. Normally it takes between 4 to 5 days for all the yachts to make it back to Noumea.

The start was in nearly calm conditions with just 5 to 8 knots of variable winds - perfect for my attempt to capture the action on my sphere camera (made of 7 WiFi connected GoPro Hero2 action cameras).

As I write this, the boats are now charging down the west coast of New Caledonia and the yacht in this photo is second in IRC overall and 5th in line honours. I can follow the progress of the yachts real-time on the official race site www.groupamarace.nc which is pretty neat. The lovely calm weather at the start has picked up to 20+ knot trade winds, just in time to make the three day fatique factor a real challenge.

The yachts are just over 120 miles from Noumea. If the winner arrives during the day I'll try to get a sphere image of the winner crossing the finish line.