VOR 2017-18 arriving in Hong Kong - Good news and bad news
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia 20 Jan 2018 11:34 PST
21 January 2018
VOR 2017-18 leg 4 finish in Hong Kong. SHK Scallywag crosses the line between Kai Tak Runway Park (background) and the ODM (foreground) © Guy Nowell
First the good news. The Hong Kong-flagged entry Team SHK/Scallywag crossed the finish line in front of the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Victoria Harbour at 01.39 local time (17.39 UTC) to record a remarkable ‘triple’; first Hong Kong entry in the VOR, first time Hong Kong has hosted a VOR stopover, first across the line. It’s fairy tale stuff.
All of a sudden Hong Kong wakes up to sailing (for at least ten minutes) and our favourite sport gets its five minutes of fame. The facts that the ‘Hong Kong’ team is funded by a Malaysian Chinese, and that there are no Hong Kong crew members at all (the token Honkie was unceremoniously fired at the end of the Lisbon stopover) was conveniently brushed under the carpet a long time ago, along with some extremely odious behaviour from the skipper, David Witt, that has brought him within an ace of a Rule 69, not once but twice, in the last 10 months.
It wasn’t an easy race, even by VOR standards. Scallywag straggled for more than half of the distance, being almost 100nm behind the pack at one point. It was a tough, slow, shifty and maddening equator crossing for everyone, but late in the tactical game navigator Libby Greenhalgh made an inspired decision to gybe away from the fleet and ‘cut the corner.’ It was a gamble, with all the weather information saying, “go north towards the new breeze” while Scallywag went west. It worked: Scallywag became the new leader of the pack.
From thereon the almost-HK boat held on to the lead. Even sending rookie crew man Alex Gough for a swim without a life jacket, a safety harness/tether or a personal EPIRB didn’t slow them down for more than the time needed for a well-executed MOB drill. Boats behind chipped away at the lead all the way to Hong Kong, but truth to tell there just wasn’t enough runway or sufficient variations in the weather pattern for anyone to launch an effective comeback. Scallywag now lies fourth overall in the fleet of seven.
“We were the last team to enter,” said Witt. “So it was always going to take us longer than the others to get up to speed. All teams need a bit of confidence, and I think that one thing that is underrated in sport is momentum – and this win will ceertainly give the crew plenty of that. We’re going to keep getting better as we continue.” Witt’s crew has changed substantially since his first press conference last year, when he vetoed the inclusion of female crewmembers, saying “We’re here to win a yacht race, not take part in a social experiment.” It is ironic that it was a female navigator that created Scallywag’s victory in her home port, but...
And now for the bad news. Minutes after Scallywag finished, the next runner in the fleet, Vestas 11th Hour Racing, was ‘involved in a collision,’ as the official language puts it. First it became noticeable that Vestas had slowed from 20kts+ to just one or two knots, and then the online tracker started to display a course inconsistent with any sort of racing, even in zero beeze. In fact, 30nm away and outside Hong Kong waters, Vestas had been holed in the port bow as the result of a collision with another boat, and was now in a search pattern looking for survivors in the water.
A ‘Mayday’ call alerted the Hong Kong MRCC, and a helicopter was despatched to the scene. A commercial vessel rescued nine people from the water, and the helicopter ferried the tenth to hospital where he died. A press release noted that “Volvo Ocean Race and Vestas 11th Hour Racing are now focused on providing immediate support to those affected by this incident. All involved organisations are cooperating with the authorities and are fully supporting the ongoing investigation.”
Vestas has retired from the race and is now being examined and assessed for damage at the HUD shipyard on Tsing Yi island. Photographs of the damage provide plenty of food for speculation, but presumably a formal Inquiry will take place, and we’ll have to wait to hear from that, later.
With Vestas delayed at sea, the door was open for Charles Caudrelier’s Dongfeng Race Team, the Chinese entry with French characteristics, to claim 2nd place. Caudrelier was in a sober mood when Dongfeng arrived at the dock. “Our first thought is that this is terrible news,” he said. “It is always very dangerous when sailing in these fishing areas when there are so many boats and some have no lights. Obviously this is very bad news for these fishermen, for the Volvo Ocean Race, and for Vestas.”
The remaining boats (AkzoNobel, Brunel, Mapfre, Turn the Tide on Plastic) filtered in over the next 12 hours, and the pontoons at Kai Tak Runway Park are 6/7 full. There’s a pause now. Next official sailing function is the VOR In-Port Race (27 January) followed by the Volvo Around the Island Race (28 January).
For a full programme of events take a look at www.volvooceanraceHK.com
And lastly, from a HK sailing journo, congratulations to Team SHK Scallywag for a fine victory. Hong Kong’s history revolves around taking a punt, and that was what you did. Bang on target, and very well done.