VOR 2014-15 - 'it’s something I will never forget in my whole life'
by Dongfeng Race Team on 6 Dec 2014
Leg two, Day 15 - Eric Peron onboard - Showers, wind shifts and lots of sail change onboard as the team enter the Indian Ocean Doldrums - Volov Ocean Race 2014-15. Yann Riou / Dongfeng Race Team
Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15 Leg two - Chinese sailor Liu Xue (Black) crosses the Equator for the first time, aged 21.
With the long term sporting mission of Dongfeng Race Team set to bring offshore sailing to China, a nation where 99% of the population don’t even know it’s a sport, it is moments like these when Chinese sailor Liu Xue (Black) crossed the Equator for the first time that should be documented and savored for years to come. The training process to get young sailors like Liu Xue and Chen Jin Hao to this point was (and still is) one of epic proportions. And as the project slowly gains recognition in China from media such as CCTV and China Daily, for this team, it’s only the beginning of what we hope will be the most widely followed Chinese sailing project in history.
Leg two, Day 16
Boat speed: 13 knots as the fleet move into more solid westerly winds.
Position in fleet: Lost a bit on Team Brunel last night but caught up today and now just 0.9 nautical miles behind them in third place.
Distance to finish: Into the final third of this leg with less than 2,000nm to go.
Two big milestones were passed recently for the Chinese team in the Volvo Ocean Race. Dongfeng Race Team returned to the northern hemisphere, resulting in Liu Xue (Black) crossing the Equator for the first time. 'I will remember this moment forever, this is my pride, my honour. It’s something I will never forget, it’s very important to me to cross the Equator at sea during a race.' Liu Xue (Black) shared a special moment onboard with his mentor, French sailor, Pascal Bidégorry. The pair toasted the moment with a bottle of Baijiu, a sort of Chinese liqueur given to them by the team’s Platinum Partner Aeolus Tyres.
The team now have less than 2,000 nautical miles to go of the 6,125 nautical mile leg from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi but judging by the close racing we’ve seen in this leg, it’s not over until it’s over.
Every meter, every mile is critical for the determined sailors onboard Dongfeng. Racing has got so close that on the race tracker it would appear Dongfeng has disappeared off the screen completely, when, in fact, our competitor’s Team Brunel icon is sitting directly over the Dongfeng icon! That’s how close racing has been this week.
Weather wise looking ahead, in simplistic terms (and it rarely turns out simple), Dongfeng and the leading boats are sailing moderately fast in the westerly Monsoon winds right now, but they are going to have to traverse in the coming day or days a second Doldrums like area that spans a gap of almost 300 miles of their track. This could create a major park up and reshuffle of the entire remaining fleet. Out the other side they will sail in to moderate to strong north easterly winds that should last for days, but not give much option for any passing lanes or position changes, before what is likely to be another reshuffle with fickle winds once through the Straits of Hormuz and in to the Gulf for the final miles in to Abu Dhabi. Sounds simple, of course it’s not! All summarised perfectly in today’s blog from Onboard Reporter, Yann Riou here:
Four days. Four days that we’ve been locked together with our Dutch friends. Four days that we’ve been fighting for every meter of boat length. So when we lose a mile and a half in one night, it’s a bit hard to digest. So we try to put that in to perspective by reminding ourselves that there are still 2,000 miles to go.
And above all remember that we are learning so much [about how to make a VO65 go faster]. Because the best way to learn about boat performance is to do two-boat testing, two boats right next to each other. That’s what is done in just about every type of high performance sailing. That’s four straight days (and nights) of training we have just done. At different wind angles, strength and sail combinations…
« For sure the rhythm onboard would be different without a boat next to us. It’s very tiring, but great learning » Eric Peron
This intensity has an impact on life onboard. Always trim, trim, trim (the sails). There is someone in front of the computer almost the whole time, talking to the helmsman [sharing performance data and the gains or losses, meter by meter, against the other boat]. It’s very positive, but very wearing!