Volvo Ocean Race – Racing up either side of the English Channel

by Sail-World.com NZL on 18 Jun 2015 The chase to The Hague is gathering momentum as the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 9 fleet split west and east of the English Channel, in search of the best coastal breezes to take them to the famous, old Dutch port.

The Hague, or to be more precise its harbour of Scheveningen, is hosting a pit-stop on the way to Gothenburg, Sweden, the final leg destination which the fleet will reach early next week.

The current estimated time of arrival here is around midnight local time/2200 UTC, but no points are awarded for this part of the leg. Instead, the boats will re-start their course to Gothenburg from midday local time/1000 UTC onwards on Saturday (June 20) from The Hague in the order they arrive tonight/early tomorrow.

They will be released to sail the remaining 480 nautical miles (nm) of the leg to Gothenburg with the same time advantages/deficits on their rivals that they took into The Hague.

By midday UTC on Thursday, it was anybody’s guess which team would reach The Hague first and gain the time advantage.

Yesterday’s (June 17) pacesetters, Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA), have opted to stay south, hugging the French coast, and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR), Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) and Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) have followed suit.

Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) have seen things differently. They headed to the western side of the Exclusion Zone that has been set up covering most of the English Channel and have clung to the English coastal side of the English Channel. Mapfre (Iker Martínez/ESP) and Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) are just astern of the Chinese boat.

The northern group will need to alter course to the south later this afternoon to reach The Hague and avoid an excluded Traffic Separation Scheme that is on their probable line of attack.



Which group has their tactics right remains to be seen, however, the wind speed at midday today was certainly stronger in the north. Team Alvimedica's OBR, Amory Ross takes up the story in his blog today.

“Is it finally time to put it all together?” That is a difficult question, and one that I asked a lot during the pre-start interviews in Lorient. It indicates we have all the pieces to the puzzle but have yet to actually assemble it, and I think that’s somewhat accurate.

We’ve talked for so long about improving and learning and practicing and staying positive, but the results—the finishing positions—haven’t necessarily indicated our progression (or, our perceived progression). We feel we’ve been capable of much more but have missed some opportunities, made a few [costly] errors, or just been unlucky. There is nothing like saving the best for last though and so far we have sailed a very clean leg.

Our biggest gains yesterday took place along the northwest coast of France where good boat handling and fast boatspeed gave us the tools to at least play the game, and Will and Charlie’s early push to be inshore all the time in search of more favorable currents gave us a jump back into the leading group. From there it was an assortment of minor victories, small gains here and there, to produce a manageable 4-mile lead. And when you’re in front with clean air and a fleet that has no choice but to follow, life gets easier all the time. That lead was up to 12 miles by midnight but of course this is no ordinary course and the English Channel is the first of many obstacles to figuratively stir the pot.

The TSS zone or traffic separation scheme, meant to give commercial traffic a dedicated highway through a busy and narrow waterway, is off limits to us and it has split the fleet in two, one group to it’s north and one to it’s south. We are still leading in the south but to the north, MAPFRE and Dongfeng (conveniently, the two teams ahead of us in the overall standings) we will not see again until the final 50 miles or so into The Hague.



Between now and then there is a significant amount of tide and current, tacking or gybing, seabreeze, landbreeze influence, and other traffic to contend with. We expect the north to look strong early but fade late, and that is why we chose to go south. As the breeze dies during the day it will stay strongest nearer the coast of France and Belgium, and hopefully that is the difference that squeezes us through the Straits of Dover before them. Our lead over Abu Dhabi and the southern group will gradually vanish too, as we sail into the lighter winds ahead first.

Regardless of the outcome we’re all really happy with the way we’ve sailed so far. It is being called the most complex leg of this race for a good reason and we’ll just have to keep controlling what we can and hope for the best!

Weather: Wet, cloudy, and damp, must be close to England! 10 knots of wind.
Position: About 10 miles off the coast of northern France.
Distance to finish: 145 miles to the Hague.

Team Brunel (27 points), Dongfeng Race Team (29 points), Mapfre (31 points) and Team Alvimedica (33 points) are fighting for position with the two remaining podium positions still there to be won now that Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing have all but secured the overall trophy.

The seven-strong fleet is expected to arrive in the Swedish port on Monday (June 22) afternoon to complete the offshore racing.

The final event of the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15, the 12th edition of the 41-year-old event, will be the Inmarsat In-Port Race Gothenburg on Saturday, June 27, drawing to a conclusion nine months and more than 38,739nm covered, visiting 11 ports and every continent.

Leg 9		DTL (NM)	GAIN/LOSS (NM)	DTF (NM)	Speed (kt)
	DFRT	0.0	0.8	587	10.9
	MAPF	0.8	0.8	588	10.8
	TBRU	5.4	1.3	593	11
	ALVI	13.0	13.0	600	6.7
	ADOR	22.1	11.1	609	8.1
	SCA1	25.5	12.3	613	7.4
	VEST	27.9	13.5	615	7.2