2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race- The best of Leg 1

by . on 12 Nov 2014 Welcome to Sail-World.com’s Volvo Ocean Race e-magazine for November 13, 2014

This time last week, the first boats on Leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race were closing in on the finish line at Cape Town, after 25 days at sea. Two days later the seven boat fleet was in port.

The first leg of the 40,000nm race around the planet was full of surprises.

Two days into the race, the all-woman crew aboard Team SCA pulled a fast one on the fleet, breaking away as the males played conservatively with their common strategy of maintaining contact, and not being left behind in the Med.

Team SCA left them to it, and headed for the Spanish coast - got the jump and led by an hour out of the Straits of Gibraltar.

Normally that would have been enough to put an interesting edge on the first leg, and could well have been converted into a handy lead.

But instead the competitors and fans got their second surprise as Team SCA was run down, and then started a nine-day boat race with numerous lead swaps, often several in a day.

Everyone ashore and afloat watched and waited for the break-out that would ultimately determine the leg. But that never came until the fleet reached the Doldrums.

Should we have been surprised that a one-design fleet was so evenly matched?

Probably, as some crews had a lot more time on the water than others - yet it seemed to make little difference. The last boats launched, Mapfre and Team Vestas Wind seemed to the equal of the campaigns that had done the sea miles on Atlantic Crossings, and Round Britain races.

The Leg was largely determined in the Doldrums, with the boats to the west, having the best run through the narrowest point, and jumped the fleet.

In this edition we have a full leg analysis, who won and why.

This Volvo Ocean Race is notable for the organisers making some bold calls and changing the structure of the race completely.

From what we have seen on Leg 1, the changes have been a resounding success, and the platform has been laid for the Race to grow new legs and move to another level.

The only test, yet to come, is how the fleet withstands hard sailing in heavy weather.

While Leg 1 may have been mentally exacting, it was not beset with strong winds - the biggest breeze was around 30 kts.

In the previous edition of the race, sailing the same course, Telefonica (Iker Martinez) took 21 days and 5 hours. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing took almost four days longer to sail Leg 1, finishing in a time of 25 days 3hours. This time Martinez skippering Mapfre took 27 days to complete the course for seventh place.

One of the key concerns with the previous race was the inability of the fleet to complete the course, let alone finish within a reasonable time. On Leg 1 in the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean race, only three boats finished on their own bottoms, the other three arrived by ship.

In 2011-12, this first leg was contested between just two of the six boats - and even so there were 11 hours between Telefonica and the second placed Camper. Three years on, just 12 minutes separated the first two finishers.

There was structural damage and break-downs in this amongst the one design Volvo 65's, but none sufficient to affect the result. The redundancy systems kicked in and kept the boats racing at race pace.

Most remarkable repair effort was aboard Dongfeng with the replacement of a broken rudder during the night.

That exercise was all caught on video, as were so many other key moments of the race, and uploaded from the boats for the waiting fans.

This has been the most media-friendly of all the Volvo Ocean Races and their Whitbread predecessor. Gone are the days of the fleet being farewelled at the start of the leg, and only being in crackly radio contact until the finish.

While the race has lost some of its mystique as a result, it is now giving fans a new viewing experience and for the sponsors, that real time audience justifies their investment in the event and teams.

We don't have all the answers to all the questions on the new race format, and probably won't until the race end.

But what has been seen so far is very good indeed.

The next instalment will be revealed when Leg 2 from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi starts in just over a week on November 19.

Stay tuned to www.sail-world.com for all the latest sailing and racing news.

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell

Sail-World Volvo Oceam Race Editor