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  VOR action and Gabart's RTW hunt—Sailing news from the U.S. and beyond
 | | Start of Leg 2. Day 1 from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race. 05 November, 2017. © Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race |
All eyes were riveted on Lisbon, Portugal this weekend for the Volvo Ocean Race's (VOR) in-port racing (last Friday), as well as the start of Leg 2 (last Sunday), which is currently taking the fleet of seven fully crewed Volvo Ocean 65s from Lisbon to Cape Town, South Africa, a distance of some 7,000 nautical miles. A glance at the scoreboard reveals that Vestas 11th Hour Racing is in the top spot with a total of 8 points, followed astern by MAPFRE, which is sitting on 6 points, and Dongfeng Race Team, which is 1 point astern of their second-place Spanish-flagged rivals. However, a deeper dive into the results shows that MAPFRE has been the dominant player in the in-port races, winning the Alicante in-port race and taking a second-just behind Team Brunel-in the more recent Lisbon in-port race.
For skipper Charlie Enright (USA) and his crew aboard Vestas 11th Hour Racing, who proudly won the first offshore leg, from Alicante to Lisbon, the good news is that they are still topping the leaderboard, but the less great news is that their inshore results (a third in Alicante and a fifth in Lisbon) could see the American- and Danish-flagged team drop from the leaderboard's enviable pole position if they don't find a bit more pace around the buoys.
 | | Start of Leg 2. Day 1 from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race. 05 November, 2017. © Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race |
Bouwe Bekking (NED), who is skippering Team Brunel, and his team had a tough go in Leg 1 and reported having to conduct a dozen back-down maneuvers to get bits of plastic and other speed-sapping flotsam off of their foils en route to Lisbon while also suffering some rudder damage. The net result was a less-than-ideal penultimate finish in Leg 1. The Dutch-flagged team brushed off their bruises last Friday to win the Lisbon in-port race and to catapult themselves into second place for the inshore racing, just astern of MAPFRE.
Come Sunday and the start of Leg 2, the wind machine switched on and the gloves officially came off for the first time in this edition of the VOR, with stunning imagery of cockpits full of foam-stained brine and of sailors battling to coax extra speed out of their half-submerged steeds.
According to reports, the fleet started in relatively strong conditions (15-20 knots) that quickly climbed to the low 30s by the time the teams were offshore. Skipper Charles Caudrelier and his Chinese-flagged Dongfeng Race Team showed plenty of heavy-air acumen to handily win the start and quickly begin making trees on the rest of the fleet as their bows pointed west.
 | | Leg 02, Lisbon to Cape Town, Day 1 on board Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag. Photo by Konrad Frost/Volvo Ocean Race. 06 November, 2017. © Konrad Frost / Volvo Ocean Race |
At the time of this writing, skipper David Witt's Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag was leading the chase by some 18 nautical miles, followed by Simeon Tienpont's drama-tainted Team AkzoNobel and Enright's Vestas 11th Hour Racing, however with thousands of miles still separating the leaders from the finishing line, this leg is still anyone's game. That said, conditions seem to be testing each team's heavy-weather skills, so don't be too surprised to see bigger finishing-line deltas in Cape Town than the fleet revealed upon arriving in Lisbon.
“We're keeping our options open,” said Simon Fisher, who serves as the navigator aboard Vestas 11th Hour Racing. “We saw MAPFRE a little earlier and Dongfeng as well and we know they appear to be going west... Big picture, the idea is to get west being mindful that it is a 20-day leg, and we want to keep tabs on the fleet so some of this is fleet management as well as weather, so we'll be watching the next few skeds closely.”
 | | Start of Leg 2. Day 1 from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race. 05 November, 2017. © Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race |
While the bigger offshore conditions are clearly playing into some team's training, others are getting opportunities for on-the-job training. 'Saw some crazy things today,” reported Sam Greenfield, who serves as the onboard reporter aboard Turn the Tide on Plastic, which is flying the colors of the United Nations. “A wave threw Bianca [Cook] off the stack and into the cockpit while she was clipped in. So much water that her PFD inflated. There she was trapped on her back in the cockpit, stuck by her tether taking hundreds of gallons of water to the face. It was scary to watch. Liz [Wardley] got to her quickly and sorted her out.”
Be sure to stay tuned to Sail-World.com for the latest VOR news, as it unfurls.
 | | François Gabart and the MACIF trimaran in Brest Jean-Marie Liot / DPPI / Macif |
Meanwhile, solo-sailing super star Francois Gabart (FRA) has untied the docking lines that held his 30-meter trimaran Macif to her dock in France on Saturday (November 4) and passed the starting line (between Ushant, France, and the Lizard Point lighthouse in Cornwall, UK) on his quest to set a record for the fastest singlehanded round-the-world (RTW) circumnavigation, which is currently held by Thomas Coville (FRA). Coville's current record of 49 days, three hours and 28 seconds will be an extremely hard one to beat, and Gabart was clear that his is not the world's perfect weather window.
 | | François Gabart © Vincent Curutchet / ALeA / Macif |
But, if all goes according to plan, the 34-year-old Gabart will cross the finishing line on December 23 to claim a new RTW record and reunite with his family for the holidays. Stay tuned for the latest news from this wild-eyed adventure ride, as it becomes known.
May the four winds blow you safely home,
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor
A QandA with John Craig about the Extreme Sailing Series Los Cabos event
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor, 
Now in its 11th season, the Extreme Sailing Series's calendar features eight different Acts set in Muscat, Qingdao, Madeira Islands, Barcelona, Hamburg, Cardiff, San Diego and Los Cabos. I caught up with John Craig, Race Director of the Extreme Sailing Series, via email, ahead of the Los Cabos Act to learn more about this high-octane event.... [more]
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