Volvo Ocean Race- Ringing the crew changes aboard Mapfre

by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com on 11 Nov 2014 At least two crew changes are slated for the Spanish flagged entry, Mapfre, for the next legs of the Volvo Ocean Race.

In a media statement today from the Pedro Campos managed team, they advised that the navigator will be replaced, and top round the world sailor Michel Desjoyeaux will not be aboard for any of the remaining legs.

Mapfre finished in seventh and last place on the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, after being passed in the last hours of the race by the all-woman crew aboard Team SCA. Mapfre had been in sixth place for much of the latter stages of the leg, but gave up that place when parked in a windless area in the shadow of Table Mountain.

Earlier the team had been in contention for the first 9-10 days, but was caught in the middle group going through the Doldrums - when boats that took a westerly route made a significant gain, as did Team Vestas Wind to the east, to a more limited extent.

Dongfeng Race Team was also caught in the middle group but was able to recover, and in the end came with 12 minutes of taking the Leg win. Mapfre was unable to improve their position in the fleet after exiting the Doldrums.

Mapfre is skippered by Iker Martinez, a three Volvo Ocean Race veteran and Olympic Gold medalist. He sailed with Xabi Fernandez at both Olympic and Volvo Ocean race events. They formed a dominating team in the last Volvo Ocean Race, winning three legs of the race, and being on top of the points table until they broke two rudders on the short leg from Lisbon, Portugal to Lorient, France.

In a statement, the team advised that Jean-Luc Nélias, the man who helped mastermind Groupama’s win in the last Volvo Ocean Race, will take over as navigator for the second leg of this edition, which gets underway from Cape Town on November 19.

Nélias (FRA) was also navigator for Franck Cammas’s winning crew in 2011-12. He replaces Nico Lunven (FRA) in the Mapfre crew that finished seventh in the opening leg from Alicante, Spain to Cape Town on Friday (November 7). Nélias had already been working with Mapfre as a weather analyst. Lunven was sailing his first Volvo Ocean Race.

In the same statement, the team also announced that Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA), the twice Vendée Globe winner on board for the first leg, will not be sailing any further stages in the 2014-15 race but remains available to assist the team from on-shore.



In the statement Mapfre repeated that it was never planned for Desjoyeaux to sail the entire race.

Desjoyeaux is quoted in the statement as saying: 'The decision (for me) to no longer sail on board Mapfre was taken by the team and me. They are not easy decisions to take but it’s also part of the life of a team. Even if I’m no longer sailing, I’ve not wasted my time. Mapfre is a great team with really good guys on board.'

His replacement will be announced in the next few days, the statement continued.

Mapfre was a relatively late entry in the Volvo Ocean Race, after negotiations for a Spanish team plus an Emirates Team New Zealand team broke down, when the New Zealand team decided to conserve funding for an America's Cup campaign, after lengthy delays over the announcement of a venue and dates for the 35th America's Cup.

From that unfortunate situation, it was announced that Martinez would sail Team Spain, later re-badged as Mapfre, after the Spanish finance and insurance conglomerate stepped in as a naming rights sponsor. The seventh boat was announced as Team Vestas Wind, and signed on the skipper and two crew from the Team New Zealand crewed Camper, which finished second in the previous edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. The Danish flagged Team Vestas Wind finished fourth on the Leg, with very minimal build up into the race, and had been lying in third overall for much of the latter stages of Leg 1.

The team said their one-design Volvo Ocean 65 boat had arrived in Cape Town generally in good shape despite some relatively minor problems with the engine, batteries and other small breakages.

The team statement notes that Mapfre sailed a total of 8,525 nautical miles (nm) and would have secured sixth spot on Friday had they not ran into an almost windless area under Table Mountain shortly before the finish. Team SCA took advantage to sail in on a more favoured course and snatched sixth instead.

The Spanish boat will be back in the water on Tuesday (November 11), preparing for the Cape Town in-port race on Saturday, November 14.

The seven-strong fleet departs for Abu Dhabi, a distance of 6,125nm, on Wednesday, November 19.