Volvo Ocean Race Leg 2 - Team Brunel finish ahead of Dongfeng
by Volvo Ocean Race 13 Dec 2014 13:09 GMT
27 November 2014
Bouwe Bekking (NED) and Team Brunel found a very timely change of gear to sweep past Dongfeng Race Team and edge to a 16-minute victory in an incident-packed Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race on Saturday.
The wily Dutch campaigner, competing in a record-equalling seventh race, looked likely to have lost out in a thrilling sprint to the finish in the 5,200 nautical mile second stage with some five hours to go.
Suddenly, Team Brunel found an extra surge of wind pressure to sweep past Charles Caudrelier's (FRA) men even though the boats were only a couple of hundred metres apart and before long they were a mile clear.
Bouwe and his equally experienced navigator, Andrew Cape (AUS), have too much know-how to let an advantage like that slip and for the second leg running, the Chinese boat was forced to settle for runners-up spot.
In the first leg from Alicante to Cape Town, they were pipped by 12 minutes by Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR). This time it was 16 minutes, an agonisingly small distance after more than three weeks at sea. Team Brunel's final elapsed time was 23 days 16 hours 25 minutes and 20 seconds.
The leg may always be remembered for the grounding of the Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) boat on a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean on November 29, 10 days after the departure from Cape Town, which forced their abandonment from the stage, but this grandstand finish will also stay long in the memory.
Certainly, Bekking will not forget it in a hurry. The big Dutch skipper, 51, who took part in his first Whitbread Round the World Race back in 1985-86, showed off his trademark wide smile as he cruised from the finish to a packed dock in Abu Dhabi on a flawless, sun-drenched morning.
"It is a good feeling," he beamed. "I've always said, it's better to be lucky than good but we've been good this leg as well so it's so nice to win this one because it could have been an easy leg to finish last. It's just really nice to get the scores but the team did a fantastic job, we sailed the boat much better than in the first leg."
Caudrelier could not conceal his disappointment in a pre-finish call to Race HQ:
"Brunel have been much faster than us since a few days and we don't know why. We're a bit disappointed because we did a good job to pass them, but they keep passing us. You have to do well, but you also have to be fast. If you're not fast, it's difficult to win a leg.
"We're not so happy (about second). We always want to improve, but for sure it's good news for Dongfeng. We try to do the leg and try to improve it every leg. We showed that we can play the match with the best, and we're proud of that."
There is consolation, though, for Caudrelier and his crew. Their second runners-up spot leaves them equal on points at the top of the standings with Team Brunel and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, who were easing in for third place.
They all have four points but Team Brunel and Ian Walker's (GBR) men are ranked above Dongfeng Race Team because of victories each has already achieved.
The Dutch boat get the highest placing because they have the most recent victory but after the successive second super-tight finish one thing is for sure: there's all to play for with seven legs to go before the race finale in Gothenburg on June 27.
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Feelings aboard Dongfeng Race Team
"We had a fantastic leg and a fantastic fight with Team Brunel. Bit disappointed as we were leading a few hours before but they deserved this win." Charles Caudrelier
A hectic, stressful and closer-than-close finish to leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race as the determined men of Dongfeng battled their way to the Abu Dhabi finish line in 2nd place at 08:41:40 UTC time just 16 minutes and 20 seconds behind their Dutch rivals Team Brunel. The leg 2 result with Team Brunel in 1st, Dongfeng 2nd and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 3rd puts all three teams tied on equal points on the overall leaderboard after two legs.
Skipper Charles Caudrelier helmed Dongfeng to the finish in Abu Dhabi this morning – a proud, if not slightly disappointed man after an epic fight with Team Brunel that had seen the Chinese team take the lead yesterday afternoon as the leaders rounded the top of the Omani peninsula. Then in the closing hours of this leg their Dutch rivals sailed right past: "We had a very close fight with Team Brunel for 8 days now! We managed to pass Team Brunel, we did a good job but a few hours ago we were ahead but they came back with a big gust and they were much faster than us, we couldn't do anything. It's very strange, we've been slower than them at times and they beat us purely through speed, it's very frustrating. If you can't go fast, you can't win." As the red boat crossed the line there were handshakes, high fives, smiles and a shrug of the shoulders from French navigator Pascal Bidegorry – summing up the feeling on board.
"We could have won so we're a bit disappointed. At least we beat Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing who are the race favourites. For Dongfeng it's not just about winning for us, we have a good team and we try to do the best and prove it on each leg. This leg was complicated but we have proven that we can match the best so we're are happy with that." In a lighter mood on the dockside, Charles remarked: "If you told me 2nd place at the start, I'd have signed."
Charles Caudrelier and his team continue to exceed expectations. He is leading a multinational crew made up of professional sailors and rookies. The pros come mainly from the short-handed sailing environment so are used to sailing with a small number of crew which the eight crew often feels like on these powerful Volvo Ocean 65s. Alongside them are the Chinese rookie sailors who continue to impress and pull their weight, albeit without all the skills or experience a Volvo Ocean Race sailor would normally have. But the combination is working and as a result Dongfeng Race Team continue to outperform some of the best sailors in the world. The Leg 2 result proves that the Leg 1 second-place was no fluke and, although it's without question too early to speculate on a nine month long race, what we can say today is that the Chinese team are now considered fully competitive.
"In Leg 1 everyone said 'oh, wow, Dongfeng finished second they must be pretty good' and now they have been consistently first, second or third the whole race since the beginning and with more set backs than other teams," said Knut Frostad, CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race. "I think it's super impressive and I think Charles should be sailor of the year when they hand out awards as a lot of people don't realise what the team has done to raise those Chinese sailors to make them that good in such a short space of time."
After a relentless near 24-day battle the one-design class of Volvo Ocean 65's has ensured the racing could not have been any closer between the top three boats. Dongfeng Race Team and Team Brunel especially have spent the majority of the second half of this leg in sight of one another: "They're always there," said Bouwe Bekking on day 19 of racing. "We wake up and say 'morning team' then we look to our right and say 'good morning Dongfeng'. We call them our Kung-Fu Fighting Friends. Always there, always fighting." Unquestionably there are moments of luck – or bad luck as was the case when the mast track came away from the mast on day 7 and Dongfeng lost valuable time affecting the repair – but overall the performance has depended on the crew and Leg 2 has shown just how close the different teams are in terms of performance.
Rookie Chinese sailors Liu Xue (Black), just 21 years old and the youngest sailor in the Volvo Ocean Race and Chen Jin Hao (Horace) aged 22, were selected to race on this leg and take up the mantle of leading the Chinese nation into offshore sailing through one of toughest ocean races in the world. Submerged into a new culture, new language and new adventure, it would seem as though these young sailors have been thrown in at the deep end contending with difficulties onboard such as the language (both sailors only started learning English at the beginning of the project) and lack of offshore experience but they have proven themselves capable of not only surviving onboard but also playing a crucial part in the team. "Black has been very impressive on his first race leg," said Charles Caudrelier. "After his first offshore training he didn't want to continue and I asked him how do you feel now, and he likes it! He's very good, always trimming, very competitive and always gives 100%. Horace is the most experienced and improves more each leg. They are disappointed because they wanted to win today but that's the game."
For Black his first Volvo Ocean Race experience has been more than memorable: "In the beginning I was worried because I have not done the race before," said Black. "I was worried about how hard the race will be but I'm enjoying it. Yesterday I tell Yann this is the sailor's life, I enjoy!" The hardest part for Black came mid-race: "Team Brunel was in front and everyone try hard to go faster but we lose a lot and, for me, that was very hard as I always want to win. But after we just keep going and we find a way. There are so many good things, hard to pick one! But yesterday to lead in front of Brunel – oh my god, we're in first place! Then we miss first place by just 1 mile. But very happy to have come back to the project and to be in the Volvo Ocean Race and I hope to keep going and get better results."
Charles Caudrelier and his crew were bombarded with the same questions prior to departure; would Black be a compromise to performance, how did they feel about having a rookie onboard, why change when Yang Jiru (Wolf) was gaining in experience? Well, for sure the best solution for pure performance might have been to keep the same two Chinese sailors, who already have more Volvo Ocean 65 Race experience than the rest of China put together, but this project is more than just racing to win – it's about sharing, educating, motivating and developing the future talent in Chinese sailing. It's about putting ocean racing on the map in China and for that to happen the mission is to still get more than just two Chinese sailors around the world. Scoring a good result? Well... we'll just call that a bonus.