Volvo Ocean Race - Oxley makes right call on Navigator’s Leg

by Rob Kothe Sail-World.com on 19 Jun 2015 The final leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015 from Lorient to Gothenburg, is punctuated with a pitstop in The Hague, Holland. Traffic zones, shipping traffic rocks, oil platforms make this 960 mile passage, the Navigator’s Leg

Late in this first part of the leg, the Traffic Separation Scheme almost fills the English Channel at its narrowest point.

On top of that, to make life thoroughly difficult for the navigators, the Volvo Ocean Race organizers inserted their own Exclusion Zones, which left a very narrow route up the French coast and a broader one up the English coast past Dover.

So the decision of the leg, as skipper Charlie Enright called it was England or France.

Townsville navigator Will Oxley as always had done his home work and made the call.

Last week Enright said to Sail-World ‘ People can argue about who is the best offshore navigator, butI know that the best prepared is Will Oxley.’ And that preparation certainly proved its worth today.

Oxley aboard Alvimedica called France as did , Simon Fisher aboard Abu Dhabi, another Australian navigator Tom Addis on Team Vestas Wind and Libby Greenhalgh with Team SCA.

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The podium contenders MAPFRE, Dongfeng and Brunel opted for English coastal route.

Initially the English route looked very good with the three boats straight lining at good speed up the coast while on the French side the four boats were forced to tack up the coast in light winds as they passed through a very narrow channel remaining between the French coast and the Exclusion zone.

Alvimedica, the fourth boat vying for a podium place, staying closer inshore and out of the adverse current broke from Abu Dhabi, Vestas and SCA and built a significant lead on these southern rivals and managed to sail into the new weather system.

As a result Alvimedica blasted clear of the whole fleet and headed towards the Hague pitstop finish at speed up to 18 knots while the English coast trio of Team Brunel, Mapfre and Dongfeng were struggling to get back across the Channel sailing in winds of 3.8kts and making as little as 1.3kts of boat speed and fighting with the tides and the other southern boats had also missed the tidal gates.

As Alvimedica finished, Dongfeng was 26 miles behind. Behind them were MAPFRE and Brunel now sailing in building breeze.

Alvimedica will start at 12 noon Saturday heading for the 2015 Volvo Ocean Race finish in Gothenburg and Dongfeng will start an hour and 46m later etc. The deltas will be preserved across the fleet. You can watch the start and finish live on Sail-World.com


1 Team Alvimedica Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 08h 34m 01s
2 Dongfeng Race Team Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 10h 20m 30s
3 MAPFRE Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 10h 54m 18s
4 Team Brunel Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 11h 11m 47s
5 Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 12h 27m 44s
6 Team Vestas Wind Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 12h 38m 18s
7 Team SCA Pit-Stop Elapsed time: 02d 13h 06m 37s

Charlie Enright, Will Oxley and the entire Alvimedica team will be hoping for strong conditions which would preserve their on the water lead, but that is unlikely to happen.


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