Reflections on Leg 1, looking to Leg 2 of Volvo OR

by Volvo Ocean Race media on 9 Nov 2008
With the Volvo Ocean Race fleet now safely ensconced in the V+A Waterfront facilities in Cape Town, the shore crews are tackling job lists while the sailors are recovering from the mental and physical stresses of the past three weeks at sea. With a relatively short stopover here in Cape Town, there's precious little time for reflection.

The teams, certainly, are looking ahead to leg two to Cochin, India, with the race start just one week away. But it may be instructive to look back over the past three weeks as well.

The first leg of a Volvo Ocean Race is always looked at as being indicative of form for the rest of the race. Historically, over the past five editions, the winner of the first leg has gone on to win the race. If you are Torben Grael, skipper of the record-breaking, first leg winner, Ericsson 4, that statistic should come as great comfort.

But there is every reason to believe this edition of the race might just break that streak. At least that's the impression most of the skippers are giving after finishing leg one.

'I think we all anticipated it would be close,' said a relaxed Grael the day after finishing in Cape Town. 'Last time was the first time this rule was used and it was a broader rule...But everybody learned from that experience. The boats have their differences but are all based on the good design from last time. The boats are not completely similar but their performance is very close in general.'

'It was unbelievable how we had boats in sight almost all of the time,' agreed Ken Read.

This was also the feeling ahead of the start. At the opening skippers' press conference, many were pointing to Ericsson 4 as being the favourite, based on their long preparation and two-boat training programme. But the Ericsson team was having none of it.

'We don't consider ourselves the favourites,' Grael said at the time. 'We have had good preparation and got the winning designer from last time, but you see from the in-port race that this is going to be tight. There are a lot of teams that have prepared very well for this race, which is not like last time where a couple of teams had a lot more time than others.'

And based on the in-port race results, surely the Telefonica boats should be fancied as well. The team finished one-two in the races, to score top points on the day. Ericsson 4 could only manage fourth place, while PUMA looked strong in third.

But when leg one started in strong - 25 knot winds, three-metre swells - conditions, it was Torben Grael's Ericsson 4 leading the fleet out of the Bay of Alicante. The big weather led to spectacular television and pictures, and provided a stern initial test to the crews.

Starting with a 'bang'.

On the first night, there was already a casualty to the conditions; Bouwe Bekking's Telefonica Blue broke a tiller arm, causing the boat to wipe out spectacularly. The team would later make a 12-hour pit stop before passing Gibraltar to put it right, making for a costly start to the race.

'I'm not very happy,' Bekking said. 'But we have to carry on and see if we can claw back all the lost miles. There's still a long way to go, and we know we can sail now optimal again.'

Although he couldn't know it at the time, fortune was perhaps smiling upon him. The first two boats through the Strait of Gibraltar, the two Ericsson boats, were confronted with flat seas, still air, and currents that at one point even pushed them backwards for a short time. The mileage lost to the pit-stop could have been much worse.

Out into the Atlantic, Ericsson 4 held the advantage, but it was tenuous grip on the lead at best. The two back-markers, Telefonica Blue and Delta Lloyd made a break along the coast of Africa in an effort to sneak through on the inside of the turn to the south. On the approach to the Canary Islands, it wasn't clear whether an easterly or westerly passage would prove the winning move, which made for sleepless nights for the navigators.

Aksel Magdahl, navigator aboard Ericsson 3, wrote: 'We need to decide on whether to go west of the Canary Islands to get the shift in wind direction, or closer to Africa to look for pressure if there is any. That might involve going between the islands, which provides for interesting navigation with local wind accelerations and risky wind shadows. We also watch the development in the Doldrums, which we will enter in five days time.'

In fact, the tactical situation at the Canary Islands inspired the first StealthPlay of the leg when Green Dragon ‘went dark' for 12 hours. At the time, speculation was over whether they were going to go west of, or through the islands. But Ian Walker would later say that the reason for the StealthPlay was that he thought they had made a mistake and he wanted to delay confirmation of his poor positioning to the rest of the fleet for as long as possible.

West is best.

But that may have been disingenuous. Walker's team would leave the Canary Islands and make a sharp right - becoming the westernmost boat in the process - as the fleet lined up for the Doldrums. What had been a painful hike to the right would soon pay dividends, although it wasn't always an obvious move.

'We have had to pay quite a high price to be the westernmost boat and I guess we will know in the next 24 hours if our strategy pays off,' wrote navigator Ian Moore. 'If not the boys will be dark. We made them gybe 6 or 8 times today, sometimes in short succession and you forget how a simple tack or gybe is actually the most gruelling manoeuvre we have to do.'

But within a couple of days, the value of that strategy would become clear to all as Green Dragon was the first to break free of the Doldrums.

In contrast, Ger O'Rourke's Delta Lloyd was now paying the price for its easterly routing out of the Canary Islands. While that choice played well for the short term on the leaderboard, it was now looking disastrous.

'Not one GRIB (weather file) I have seen for the Doldrums has been accurate for what we have experienced,' he complained, as he watched the leaders to the west streak away at speed towards the trade winds. He had company in his misery, as Team Russia struggled out to the east as well.

Fortunate to remain among the leading group was Ericsson 4 after they were forced to detour to the Cape Verde Islands to evacuate Tony Mutter, who was suffering from a bad infection in his knee. The team didn't have to make a significant detour from their optimum course to approach the islands, but nonetheless perhaps lost as much as 50 miles in the process. And now the team would have to complete the leg a man down, not an insignificant disadvantage.

But in the drag race down towards the first scoring gate, it was PUMA, Green Dragon and Ericsson 4 who were first out of the Doldrums and across the equator. While there was a serious yacht race at hand, the ancient maritime tradition of a visit from King Neptune for those experiencing their first Doldrums passage was still observed. Oddly enough, it was the skippers on two of the top three boats - Ian Walker and Kenny Read - who were the focus of Neptune's attention.

Dragon draws first blood.

With the leaders in tight formation, the goal was the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha, where the first offshore scoring points of the Volvo Ocean Race would be awarded. This was now a speed contest, with the fleet streaking southwards off the coast of Brazil. Green Dragon was fighting to hold off their more powerful pursuers. Walker and his men seemed to accept that it was only a matter of time before PUMA and Ericsson 4 made the pass, but if they could hold on long enough, it was going to be worth critical scoring points.

In the event, the march past the scoring gate couldn't have been closer. Green Dragon just held on to first place, with Ericsson 4 and then PUMA (just 17 minutes back) in close pursuit. The two Telefonic