Volvo Ocean Race - Mark Chisnell - Leg 9 Final Report – It’s Finished!

by Mark Chisnell on 23 Jun 2015 Top Volvo Ocean Race correspondent, navigator and sailing analyst, Mark Chisnell writes a regular report for B&G on the current race and trends he sees developing. This week he reviews Leg 9.

Mark Chisnell – Leg 9 Final Report – It’s Finished!

The final leg of the 2015-16 Volvo Ocean Race wrapped up the overall win for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing. An understandably cautious performance and a fifth place gave Ian Walker and his team the much coveted title – but it was a far from easy finish.

It might have been short – just 960 miles from Lorient to Gothenburg via a pitstop in The Hague – but in many ways this was one of the toughest legs, with some of the most challenging conditions and toughest decisions all packed into an eventful six days. And for the four boats chasing the final two places on the podium – Team Brunel, Dongfeng Race Team, MAPFRE and Team Alvimedica – it kept the race wide open until the very end.

Straight-forward Opening

It began in Lorient on the 16th June as we had expected in last week’s preview with the fleet working their way along the coast of Brittany to Ushant in a light northerly breeze. The opening section involved some relatively straightforward reaching, with the fleet led north by Team Brunel, everyone in a tight bunch behind them.

New Breeze

We were expecting the wind to lighten, and then freshen again as a new westerly wind arrived from the north-west, part of a big low pressure travelling east over the far North Atlantic – have a look at the forecast for 3pm on the 17th June in Pic 1.

The transition to the new breeze started that morning. In Pic 2 from 06:40 on 17th June, we can see that the fleet had sailed into a progressive wind shift, the northerly going to a west-northwesterly. So everybody tacked. The group offshore included Team Brunel, MAPFRE and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, with Team Vestas Wind, Dongfeng Race Team and Team Alvimedica in the middle, and Team SCA plying a lonely route inshore.

For the rest of this review click here