Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15 – Just hours before the start
by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World team on 11 Oct 2014
Abu Dhabi during the Alicante practice race. Francisco Vignale
http://www.franciscovignale.com/
A packed press conference at the Volvo Ocean Race centre yesterday morning, less than 30 hours before the start of Leg 1, Alicante to Cape Town.Now the start is just five hours away. It's yet another clear bright day here in Alicante on Spain's Costa Blanca. Its currently 17 degrees centigrade and it should climb to 26. By start time 2pm. local, the seabreeze should be kicking in from the south.
This is shaping as one of the best Whitbread-Volvo Round the World races ever. Enormous credit has to go to Knut Frostad and Volvo for transitioning this event from a technology free-for all into a strict one design event.
When asked would they have been sitting at the front of the press conference had this race not been made one design, each of the seven skippers gave the same answer. No!!
Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing is clearly the form crew, with SiFi, Simon Fisher as navigator, helm, overall they are an experienced team, with a lot of sea miles in the VOR65. They won the Round Britain race and performed well in the inshore race and barring a major tactical error, podium players on each leg is certainly on the cards.
Walker commented today ‘No matter how much sailing you have done in the boats we probably all have the same challenge and that’s learning. We have not sailed against other teams other than the very short Leg 0 and the Round Britain Race which was very windy and a bit chaotic.
‘I think we are all desperate to sail against the other boats and learn as fast as we can.’
As Nico quite rightly says, this is just one leg of a long race and you would probably exchange a position or two for a lot more learning that would help you in the rest of the race. The other big challenge looking at the weather is getting out of here. It is going to be really light for the latest forecast.
‘It is looking fairly light getting out of here. On the wind, through the Straits and pretty light round that as well possibly.
‘As Nico also said, that’s going to be a real leveller. When it’s light and fiddly you have just got to make sure you don’t get left behind. It can happen pretty fast in these boats. The challenge is staying in touch and learning as much as you can and giving yourself a chance in doing well once you get down south and get some strong wind.
Today we feature the first part of a Sail-World interview conducted with Walker.
Walker believes that Team SCA is the real human interest story of this race but could surprise on the race track too.
Well-funded, lots of talent and Walker feels the real benefit they will have over the duration of the race, is that with crew numbers down, sheer exhaustion may drag the skipper and navigators on the six men’s boats into tactical mistakes while the SCA afterguard will be much better rested.
Today Jedda Murphy brings us a feature on Team SCA, she was on board the boat for the Alicante practice race, captured plenty of action and observed the on boat dynamics.
But for now… here is the best of the vast amount of material on the 2014-2015 Volvo Ocean race and we look forward to seeing you on Sail-World to watch the start live on Saturday 11th October at 1300 GMT.
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