Volvo update as of December 3 The fleet (reduced to six now,…
Volvo update as of December 3
The fleet (reduced to six now, sadly) continues to race north through the Indian Ocean. It’s been hot and nearly windless, with the boats coming together in a belt of calms south of the equator, and another belt of calms (the doldrums proper? I’m not very knowledgeable about Indian Ocean wind patterns) waiting north of them.
ADOR has been clinging to a small lead, with Brunel and Dongfeng a few miles behind and even closer to each other. Seriously; Yann on Dongfeng has been getting great shots of the boats racing side by side for the last few days. Get a room, you two!
Mapfre had been more or less leading up until a couple of days ago, but then they decided the wind looked better to the east and took a big hitch that way. They said in interviews that they expected the rest of the fleet to follow, but no; the rest of the fleet just watched them go. They lost some ground, then made some of it back, but I think on balance the move east looks like a mistake.
Further back, SCA (who had been following the leaders up the middle) and Alvimedica (who had gone west) recently swapped places, so now it’s Alvimedica in the middle and SCA to the west. Alvimedica has been making up ground, and they still have a make-good coming for the night they spent helping with the Vestas rescue. No word yet on what form that make-good will take.
The Vestas crew, having chosen to stay a second day on their desert island to pull more gear off the wreck, have now been brought back to Mauritius by fishing boat. That’s navigator Wouter Verbraak on the left in the last photo above. The crew still hasn’t given a lot of detail; supposedly they’ll be flying to Abu Dhabi shortly, and there will be a press conference there this weekend. I want to hear Wouter’s account of what happened, but I’m not really looking forward to it. I feel for what he must have been going through.
The Vestas Wind sponsors have been saying some interesting things. They may try to come up with a way for the team to rejoin the race with a new boat. I counted up days from today until the start of the upcoming legs, and got this:
- 29 days until Leg 3 start (Abu Dhabi to Sanya — plus 6 more legs after)
- 65 days until Leg 4 start (Sanya to Auckland — plus 5 more legs)
- 100 days until Leg 5 start (Auckland to Itajai — plus 4 more legs)
- 135 days until Leg 6 start (Itajai to Newport — plus 3 more legs)
- 163 days until Leg 7 start (Newport to Lisbon — plus 2 more legs)
Assuming they’re willing to build a new boat, I wonder how long it would take. According to the official VOR site, building a Volvo Ocean 65 normally takes 7 months. Could they speed it up? If they could do it in 100 days they could be on the starting line for Leg 5 in Auckland.
They’d be way behind in terms of the overall standings, with a DNF in Leg 2 and a DNS in each of legs 3 and 4. But I’m not sure how much that matters. I don’t think sponsors really care about winning the race per se. They care about exposure, and goodwill, and favorable publicity. If they could get a new boat on the starting line for Leg 5, the media would love it. There’d be the “race to reach the starting line”, the skipper and crew’s “race for redemption”, etc.
It’d be dramatic. It’d be interesting. I’d sure watch it.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1FQF9TK.
Tags: vor, volvo ocean race, team vestas wind.
