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Volvo Ocean Race

Tricky Malacca exit

30 January 2012

More than 1000 nautical miles of upwind sailing is looking oddly appealing to the Volvo Ocean Race crews charging away from the frustrations of the Malacca and Singapore straits into the South China Sea on Monday.

At 1500 UTC the top five yachts had compressed to within 25 nautical miles (nm) of each other. Team Sanya however are trailing by more than 155 nm in sixth place.

Leg leaders Team Telefónica were within hailing distance of Groupama sailing team overnight, but have since extended their 20 metre gap over the second place French team to more than three nautical miles.

In third place PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG are on the comeback trail, closing to within eight nautical miles of Telefónica after a fishing net they snagged earlier today took one hour to detach and put them more than 10 nm behind the leaders.

In fourth and fifth respectively Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand have continued to shadow each other closely in a match race along the Malaysian coast, more than 22 nm behind the leaders.

After four days’ racing in Malacca Strait’s fickle conditions Team Telefónica are this afternoon expected to lead the fleet on a starboard rounding of the Horsburgh Lighthouse into the open waters of the South China Sea.

Race meteorologist Gonzalo Infante said the fleet was likely to experience a northeasterly monsoon wind of about 10-15 knots until they round an archipelago including Rigan, Nunsa and Selia islands tomorrow morning.

Infante predicted the going would get tough as the teams trek north towards the Vietnam coast with a building monsoon surge generating strong winds and a four to five metre swell.

“It is very going to be very rough racing with gale force winds predicted and a very rough sea state building,’’ he said. “The sailors will have to try to slow their boats down to try not to break anything. Anything can happen here.”

Team Telefónica watch captain Neal McDonald said the crew had been awake for 20 hours in the past 24 and completed as many as 12 gybe maneuvers in one hour as they negotiated the exit from the strait and defended attacks from competitors.

The promise of open water and upwind conditions was proving motivating for the team, McDonald said.

“It’s quite intense, you can make a mistake so easily and it could cost miles,’’ McDonald said of the Malacca and Singapore straits. “There is a lot of pressure to keep pushing the boat hard and make sure you do the right thing all the time.

“We’re getting a little excited about getting out of here and getting into some straight forward sailing.

McDonald said sailing against the strong winds for the final stretch to Sanya, China should suit the Spanish boat who lead the race overall after winning the first two legs.

“Upwind seems to suit us quite well, but we’re quite comfortable that we’ll have nice conditions for us once we get out of here. The boat’s well set up for that, I think we’ve got good sailors on board, the sail programme is good and we just feel comfortable in those conditions,” he said.

However, second placed Groupama are preparing to strike. Skipper Franck Cammas said his team had made improvements to their upwind performance which he hoped would help them gain the lead on the 1200 nm beat to Sanya, China.

“This is where we will have to try to overtake the leader,’’ Cammas said. “Upwind is not our best condition, but we have improved. It’s always good to start these miles with some advantage, especially related to CAMPER, who is a good upwind boat.”

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing skipper Ian Walker also had gains on his mind, having edged in front of CAMPER by less than one nm at 1400 UTC. Walker said while the straits had been mentally taxing, he believed the South China Sea would be physically challenging.

“We are closer to the leaders than we have been since day four and we have had great fun trading places with CAMPER for the last 24 hours,’’ he said. “Looking ahead it would be fair to say that nobody on board is looking forward to the last part of this leg – - 1200 miles upwind to China with some rough conditions certain off the Vietnamese coast.”

A faster than expected passage through the Malacca Strait has seen the estimated time of arrival for the leading boats move to around February 4.

Team Sanya will receive full Leg 3 points when they finish at their home port, as they were unable to take part in Stage 1 because of a rigging problem, while the other five teams who successfully completed the first stage of Leg 3 will receive 80 per cent of the points for completing the second stage.

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