Volvo Ocean Race Leg 2 - Start
by Volvo Ocean Race 19 Nov 2014 20:24 GMT
19 November 2014
Skippers of the seven boats in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, which set out for the 6,125 nautical mile (nm) Leg 2 from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, left with warnings of possible cyclone activity and tropical storms ringing in their ears.
Race organisers took late measures to keep the 66 sailors away from the very worst of the weather on the Indian Ocean with a new exclusion zone leading to the Seychelles.
There were already zones in place to avoid icebergs in the Southern Ocean and the more unlikely menace of pirate attack further down the route on the east coast of the Indian Ocean.
The latter zone was being kept secret from the public to avoid the possibility of the fleet being intercepted.
From the very start on Wednesday (1800 local/1600 UTC), the sailors were given a taste of things to come with gusts of up to 35 knots kicking up a procession of white-capped waves.
It was a question of 'don't break your boat' as most opted for conservative sail choices, while they wrestled to keep them under control and intact.
For the second leg start in a row, Team Brunel led the fleet out of port after wrestling the lead, first from MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP), and then Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) who were well in the hunt.
The fleet will continue to sail in these gale-force conditions, which Team Alvimedica skipper Charlie Enright (USA) described before the start as 'heinous'.
"I think we're all going to have to be pretty conservative," he told the skippers' press conference, just over 24 hours earlier. "This could be the worst sea state these boats have ever seen."
Favourites for the leg are Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR), who have barely made a false move since setting out from Alicante on October 11.
They followed their 12-minute win over Dongfeng Race Team in Leg 1 on November 5, by securing victory on Saturday in the Cape Town in-port race.
When asked if there were such a thing as 'home advantage' in sailing, Walker, 44, was determined to keep his crew's feet on the ground - as well as his own.
"First we have to get there," he smiled. "I'll be happy just to get within range and then arrive in Abu Dhabi. There's a fantastic welcome for everybody in store once we get there, that's for sure."
Team Vestas Wind surprised onlookers when a choir on board their support boat burst into song just prior to the start. Their message was loud and clear: 'There's an even more important race we must win - to save the environment'.
Leg 2 is expected to take between 22 to 28 days to complete, depending on conditions. The boats will remain in Abu Dhabi over Christmas and the New Year before setting sail again on January 3 for Sanya, China.
How to follow the race
www.volvooceanrace.com
Quotes from Team SCA
"It is pretty windy so it should be an exciting start. We will first head south and then try to work out at what point to turn left, avoid the cyclones, pick our way through the Doldrums and then drift along in the sea breeze at the end," commented Team SCA navigator Libby Greenhalgh before dock out. "It feels like there is a fair amount of pressure [from a navigational perspective] and with no one having done this leg before, and it is a big leg, that makes it pretty open for us, which gives us a pretty good chance."
For the first all-female team in the Volvo Ocean Race for 12 years, the key to success on this leg is to keep pushing. "We need to use all the lessons that we learnt on the first in the right way. This leg will be fast to begin with and will probably be frustratingly slow at the end. But we need to get back into our normal onboard routines as quickly as possible and sail the boat well, in the way that we have been taught," commented Sam Davies, Team SCA's skipper.
"We will have Southern Ocean, Doldrums, pirates, Persian Gulf – we have a big month ahead of us, and we are ready," concluded Davies.
Quotes from Dongfeng Race Team
As Yann Riou (Onboard Reporter) described it in a direct tweet from onboard Dongfeng just 30 minutes after the start, "0 to 40 knots before we've even left Cape Town".
Mike Horn: "A leader is somebody that doesn't have to say much but has a presence. On this boat Charles has a presence. He listens to people and I know that his word is stronger than his pride, this is perhaps the advantage he has an advantage over the other skippers."
Charles Caudrelier: "My Chinese sailors are not passengers on this boat. Black will be the same because he has a good spirit. My expectations for leg two is for Black to have a good race, people ask me 'how can you be competitive and train rookies at the same time?' My answer is that we try to do well because this is how we will teach them, we want to teach them how to have a good result. I hope to inspire, that is my most important job as a Skipper."
Pascal Bidégorry: "I am stressed. There is a lot of wind at the start of this leg."
Liu Xue (Black): "I'm a little bit excited. Well I'm very excited but I try not to be, I don't want to distracted I want to be focused, I try to stay level. So I'm only a little bit excited, not a lot. This team is a big family, we eat together, sleep together, we talk about everything on the boat, we are like brothers. Well... maybe Pascal is like a father! We Chinese only have little experience so the others they help us. They have helped my mentality and now I'm ready."
Eric Peron: "It's been a short break but I'm really excited to get back on the water, it's going to be an interesting leg with strong wind at the start. It will be very interesting to see how the teams manage this leg because there are a few key decisions to make early on. The start is going to be very windy and even though sailors want wind, this much wind can be dangerous. I guess we will focus on not breaking people or boat. We just need to keep in mind that we did something good on leg one and we can hope to do something good again, Black is a good element for the team, he is motivated and I'm not too worried about the crew change. Horace is very confident from leg 1 and we aim to make Black confident too."
Yang Jiru (Wolf): "I have known Black for a long time and now he's finally made it to be onboard for a leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. He is so happy and I am happy for him, I hope he will sail well and travel fast."