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Volvo Ocean Race fleet heading for first night ordeal

by Volvo Ocean Race media 4 Nov 2011 13:04 GMT 5 November 2011

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet is set for an early battering as the six teams head straight into what could be boat-breaking conditions on the first of nine ocean legs starting tomorrow.

The weather forecast is for winds of 25 knots just hours after the starting gun fires in Alicante, Spain at 1300 UTC (1400 local). The combination of those winds with a choppy sea state will make it a tough first night on the Volvo Open 70 boats as they begin the 6,500 nautical mile first leg to Cape Town.

“The conditions at first will be ideal for these boats – fast sailing in fresh breeze,” said Gonzalo Infante, the Volvo Ocean Race’s chief meteorologist. “But within about 12 hours, as the boats race into the night, they will have to punch upwind into winds around 25 knots and confused seas. These boats will be slamming around and it will be very wet on deck.”

Ken Read, skipper of PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG, put it bluntly: “It looks like we could get the crap kicked out of us getting out of the Med.”

Preview with Torben Grael, 2008-09 winner, & Knut Frostad, Volvo Ocean Race CEO:

Leg 1 sees the teams take on the unpredictable Mediterranean, the tidal bottleneck of the Straits of Gibraltar and the strong northeasterly trade winds of the North Atlantic before facing the Doldrums, a constantly-moving area of high pressure found a few hundred miles either side of the Equator, notorious for being one of the toughest regions on the planet to sail through.

Once through the Doldrums the teams will search out the southeasterly trade winds close to the Brazilian shore, hoping to pick up the meteorological slingshot effect that will fire them through the South Atlantic to Cape Town.

Assuming they emerge unscathed from the rough ride early in the leg, the teams will have an eye on breaking the 24-hour distance record of 596.6 nautical miles, set by Ericsson 4 on leg one in the last race.

Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing go into the first offshore leg at the top of the leaderboard with six points after victory in the Iberdrola In-Port Race. PUMA finished second, followed by CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, Team Sanya, Groupama sailing team and Team Telefónica.

Walker, a two-time Olympic silver medallist, said the first 24 hours of the leg could prove crucial to the end result.

“The big question will be whether we can get out of the Med quick enough to connect with the trade winds,” the Briton said. “We’ll see over 20 knots upwind and that’s enough to break these boats. It could be that the most decisive point of this leg is the first 24 hours.”

Mike Sanderson, skipper of Chinese entry Team Sanya, knows all too well about sailing into heavy weather. He led ANB AMRO ONE to victory in the 2005-06 race when a storm ravaged the fleet hours after the start from the Spanish port of Vigo.

“There’s nothing that starts quite as quickly as a Volvo Ocean Race -- you’re into it straight away,” the New Zealander said. “We’re going to see some action pretty quickly. It’s looking like it could be pretty churned up out there.”

Despite the forecast, CAMPER’s Australian skipper Chris Nicholson said his team were keen to get started on leg 1, which is expected to keep the 11-man teams, including one embedded Media Crew Member, at sea for an exhausting 21 days.

“We are all over that kind of weather,” Nicholson said. “We have had it since day one of the launch. It’s not a problem for us. We may well see 30 knots on the nose before we get to the Gibraltar Straits and that’s OK. We had 45 knots on the way down to Alicante from the UK so we’re up for 30 knots for sure.”

Franck Cammas, charged with leading France’s first entry in 18 years, said his team were in “the racing frame of mind” as the clock ticked down to the start.

“We are ready,” the Groupama 4 skipper said. “We are looking at the weather and it’s as if we are already racing. We have been preparing for a long time and we are happy to be leaving on Groupama 4 which has shown its potential and looks promising offshore.”

Iker Martínez said Telefónica would be looking to show what his crew is capable of in the offshore legs, which offer five times as many points as the in-port races.

“I’m feeling good but a little bit nervous, not because I’m worried about anything in particular but because we have spent a long time preparing and we want to have a good race,” said Martínez, who has gold and silver Olympic medals to his credit. “We didn’t have a very good inshore race and that’s given us even more determination to prove ourselves.”

Ever since the Volvo Ocean Race became a single-class event in 1997-98 the winners of the first leg have gone on to take overall victory.

“I’ve heard it several times this great tradition that you have to win leg one to win the race, but I’m not so sure about that this time,” said Read. “I think this is setting up to be too close.”

Before the teams leave Alicante, fans will get a final chance to see the fleet up close, as they complete a short course along the Alicante shoreline starting near the port, heading to Albufereta then up to Cabo de Huertas and back before setting sail for the open sea. The leg start will be shown live through the New Livestream platform, which includes video, photos, audio and text updates at new.livestream.com/volvooceanrace

You don’t have to be onboard one of our Volvo Open 70s to find out what’s going on out on the racecourse. There are plenty of ways you can follow the racing at home and on the move, find out here how to follow the race.

Cliffhanger - Skippers helicopter shoot:

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing ready to soar

Alicante, Spain. 4th November 2011: Ian Walker, skipper of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing – Arabia’s first entry in the gruelling, 39,000 nautical mile Volvo Ocean Race which starts from Alicante in Spain tomorrow - says he “cautiously optimistic” after powering home to the first points win of the campaign last weekend.

Double Olympic medallist Walker, the only British skipper in the 2011/12 race, knows all too well the pressures of the nine-month long event, which he contested in 2008/09, and is confident that Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing – backed by Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) - can hold its own against sailing’s elite when it challenges with its state-of-the-art ‘Azzam’ (determination) Volvo Open 70 racing yacht.

Yet Walker - who has accrued a wealth of sailing experience in a two-decade long career including coaching the 2004 British Olympic Gold medal winning women's keelboat sailing team - knows that despite dominating the short in-port race opener, only when the six-strong race fleet heads out on the opening 6,500 nautical leg to Cape Town will they see how they all line-up.

“It was a great feeling to take the first points, but you can’t read too much into it. These are high-performance offshore boats, and we need to get them out on the open water to truly see how we are all placed. This is the most closely contested race we have ever seen, there are five teams that could take this, but we are hungry for it and won’t settle for second best,” said the 41-year-old father of two.

“The Volvo Ocean Race is mentally and physically exhausting. The whole project is quite daunting but it is easier to comprehend having done the race before. I have huge respect for the yachts and the race and we are as prepared as we possibly can be.”

ADTA has drafted in one of the strongest crews for Walker’s second Volvo Ocean Race campaign.

With 15 previous race appearances between them, including three wins, as well as a raft of America’s Cup and Olympic campaigns, the crew is the most intercontinental ever assembled for the race.

Two of the most experienced - Jules Salter, the winning Ericsson 4 team navigator in the last race and a runner up in the 2005/6 campaign; as well as Volvo Ocean Race 2005/06 winner and 2008/09 runner-up, Robert Greenhalgh - believe Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has got what it takes to go the distance.

“You can always do more testing, get more numbers to gauge performance and make things better but we have been training hard and working round-the-clock to be the most competitive we can be. In Azzam we have a beautifully built yacht and in the team, both on and off the water, we have pulled together a cohesive unit that is eager to win,” said Salter, widely regarded as one of the world’s top offshore navigators.

In addition, Greenhalgh - one of Britain’s most talented next generation sailors, having won major championships in everything from small dinghies to round-the-world yachts – is confident his previous Volvo Ocean Race winning experience will be critical to the team’s success.

“It is going to be a very close race with six boats very capable of winning legs. Different teams are going to have strengths and weaknesses and different sails are going to be good for different days. Finishing with consistent results will be the key and we aim to win the race by right in the mix for each leg,” said 34-year-old Greenhalgh.

Emirati Olympian Adil Khalid, who became the first Gulf national to compete in the event with last weekend’s Alicante in-port racing is relishing the chance to get underway.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous but we’ve trained so hard and we know we have what it takes to push for top honours. This opening leg to Cape Town will be the longest I have ever been at sea in one go, so this is a whole new experience. Whatever adventure is ahead of me, I know I am excited and ready to make my country proud,” said the 23-year-old.

The Volvo Ocean Race is the world’s longest professional sporting event. Sailing the fastest monohull race yachts ever built, the six teams start in Alicante and end in Galway, Ireland next summer. The race will make history this New Year when it arrives in Abu Dhabi – its first Arabian stopover.

ADTA, which is behind the fortnight-long hosting of the race in the UAE capital, is committed to making its stopover a race highlight.

A boisterous introduction (from Groupama)

Though the rain is hammering down in this the start venue for the Volvo Ocean Race, the weather scenario is likely to be somewhat different for Saturday's 1400 hour race start off Alicante, bound for Cape Town (South Africa), some 6,500 miles away. Indeed the weather conditions are set to be fairly bracing with around fifteen to twenty knots of WNW'ly breeze for the preliminary seven mile course.

"We'll have a bit of everything as we'll be setting off on a beam reach, then we'll be on a beat and finally we'll be gybing downwind. A few manoeuvres are on the menu for the warm-up then! It'll be an entirely different spectacle too as the preliminary races were run in light airs..." says Jean-Luc Nélias, Groupama 4's navigator.

After this fast coastal course, the six crews will then drop due South towards the Palos headland, on a reach in a good twenty knots or so of WNW'ly breeze. Following on from that they'll head up about thirty degrees to go and hunt down the Gata headland where the wind will build as it clocks round to the NW.

Gibraltar, the nerve centre

"There will be up to 25 knots of breeze in this descent to the Gata headland and the boat will also be making 25 knots of boat speed... The first section promises to be very quick, but then we'll be on a beat as the breeze gradually picks up to over 35 knots! We're going to need to make headway to the West, driving into a W'ly wind synonymous with a strong breeze, a series of tacks and difficult short seas, with up to 3-4 metre waves."

This Mediterranean weather isn't serving up the usual kinds of conditions for the VOR-70s, which are more designed for racking up the miles with eased sheets. With 40 knots of breeze, the boats will be sailing under storm jib and two reefs in the mainsail so the passage between the Gata headland and the Alboran Sea will call for further headsail changes!

"However, these difficult conditions aren't likely to last very long: we'll be at the Gata headland on Saturday evening and in the Straits of Gibraltar early afternoon on Sunday. That said, it's going to be very hard overnight on Saturday. After that, the wind will ease fairly quickly and it may even become too calm!"

At the entrance to the Atlantic, there are two possible scenarios: either the boats will manage to slip along the Moroccan coast in a light N'ly breeze, or the zones of calm conditions will call for them to shift across to the West, towards Madeira, to traverse a thalweg which will snuff out the tradewinds and hook onto a NW'ly breeze offshore... Currently the weather models are too vague to draw up a definitive strategy.

"In any case, the winds will be light after Gibraltar and a leg lasting more rather than less than twenty days looks to be on the cards, as the tradewinds don't appear to be very strong, even in the Canaries. The key thing over the first two days of racing is to handle the boat carefully in the Alboran Sea, whilst remaining at the front of the pack, because there may be a means of stealing a march after Gibraltar... As such there are a fair few openings for this very first part of the race" concludes the navigator.

Ready to dispatch

The crew of Groupama 4 has been able to make the most of the last few days on shore to rest and focus on this opening slice of the Volvo Ocean Race, the first offshore leg, where the sailors will discover the true potential of each team!

Between now and tomorrow, each of the crew are spending time with their families to enjoy the final moments on dry land, as Franck explains: "There's always a bit of pressure before a race start such as this, though this one is a bit different because I have a lot to learn and less overall control of the matter, the environment and this type of race. It was a bit like that for my first Route du Rhum in 1998. However, this race is in crewed configuration and everyone's ready. It's still a big leap into the unknown, especially as we're going to be setting off in breezy conditions. Obviously I'm a bit nervous and my greatest fear is breaking something! We're not going into the race lightly in any sense..."

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