Worlds best in Hyeres – Extreme Sailing - Dongfeng OK again

by Dan Ibsen on 23 Apr 2015 ISAF World Sailing Cup, Hyeres – This year’s world cup event in Hyeres is different from earlier years!

Until last year the Hyeres event has been one of the largest events for Olympic Classes on the planet. With the new concept for the ISAF World Sailing Cup there is now a restriction of 40 boats per class, 30 of those qualified from the world rankings, and 10 qualified recently at the Princesa Sofia Cup in Palma – which is now the world’s largest Olympic sailing event, in numbers.

The best sailors in the Olympic and Paralympic Classes in the world are from Wednesday to Sunday not only fighting to win medals in this first world cup event in Europe. They winners are at the same time qualifying for the Grand Finals in Abu Dhabi and there is 72.000 € in prize money for the best sailors.

Many countries at the same time use the event as qualification of sailors to the Pre-Olympic races in Rio in August 2014, and there are countries where Hyeres is a part of their qualification of their nation teams in classes, where they have gained a national spot.

Racing got underway in light winds yesterday, with 2 races in each class. GBR Sailing Team was in top 10 in three classes: 470W, 49er and Finn after the first day.

Read John Fullerton’s interview with Giles Scott in the beginning of the 2015 season HERE

Get daily reports from the event at Sail-World.com

Extreme Sailing Series - Danish Olympic Champion Jonas Warrer will co-skipper the national Extreme 40 entry ‘Team Extreme Qingdao’ in China’s Olympic sailing city of Qingdao.

The Danish 49er skipper – currently competing in ISAF Sailing World Cup in Hyeres - will be returning to the venue where he won his Olympic gold medal in 2008, after breaking the mast an hour before start and borrowing a boat in the medal race.

Lining up against eight elite sailing teams with 40 of the world’s best sailors from 13 nationalities, the team will be on the starting grid on 30 April for four days of intense competition, as they prepare to lock horns on one of the most notorious racecourses in Extreme Sailing Series history. Despite only having one vital day of training together before the Act begins, the team believes they can give a good performance in front of Chinese sailing fans.

Volvo Ocean Race - In the meantime the six teams fighting for line honours on Leg Six must first confront the remaining 4.000 miles that separate their them from the Newport finishing line.

While the fleet began racing on Sunday, they have been experiencing sticky and slow conditions that have forced the boats to pack up as they search for stronger trade-winds pressure.

As of this reporting, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing was leading the hunt, followed by Alvimedica, Team SCA and MAPFRE, less than 5 miles separating the leader from the last boat Team Brunel. Anything can happen on this leg, and One Design close racing continues in the Volvo Ocean Race.

Dongfeng again with water for the crew - Less than 24 hours in to leg six, Dongfeng Race Team discovered a leak to their water-maker rendering it unusable. The water-maker… a vital piece of equipment that had been taken for granted until now.

As a result, the team was reduced to hand-filtering their portable water rations - a time-consuming task that can easily burn up plenty of valuable calories simply to keep the crew nourished and hydrated.

The team have confirmed that the repairs to their water-maker are holding… for now. A huge relief as they only had one attempt and had it not worked – the alternative would have been bleak.

To put things in perspective that’s a day of intense manual pumping on the emergency water-maker can only produce 3.5 litres an hour. It was estimated that the team would physically need to pump for up to nine hours a day to survive, if the repair did not work. On top of racing.

Manual pumping was one option, the alternative was to make a pit stop, however the rules state a pit stop must be a minimum of 12 hours, which could cost Dongfeng many precious miles and potentially have a great effect of their overall position.

Get the full VOR multimedia report, inside this issue.

Good Sailing!
Dan Ibsen
UK Editor