#VOR - Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team were putting on a display of straight-line speed sailing today (Friday 10 November) as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet bore down on the Doldrums.

The Chinese-flagged team had eked out a narrow five-mile lead over rivals MAPFRE, Team Akzonobel and Damian Foxall’s boat Vestas 11th Hour Racing from yesterday afternoon – and by 1pm UTC today they had doubled it as they drew level with Cape Verde.

As the downwind drag race south entered another day, Dongfeng were also the quickest boat in the fleet, making just shy of 20 knots in 16 knots of breeze, due in part to sailing a slightly hotter angle than the others.

However, a 12-mile lead six days into a 7,000-mile leg, while hard-earned, is negligible — especially when in a couple of days' time the fleet will have to face the Doldrums, one of the most tactically important parts of the stage.

“We're about 560 miles from where we expect the Doldrums to start, so really now it's just a drag race south,” said Vestas 11th Hour Racing navigator Simon Fisher, content with their third-place position to the north-west of Dongfeng.

“For now it's all about speed – trying to get south as quickly as we can. Once we get nearer the Doldrums it'll be about fine-tuning our position a little bit and seeing if we can move east or west to have a smoother run through.”

For the first time this race, one team was missing from the tracker today.

Turn The Tide on Plastic, with Ireland’s Olympic hero Annalise Murphy among its crew, opted last night to go into Stealth Mode, whereby their position is hidden from their rivals for 24 hours ending at 7pm UTC this evening.

Skipper Dee Caffari said she hoped her team's disappearance from the rankings would score them crucial points in the Leg 2 mind game.

“We are slowly making gains back on Scallywag and Brunel and would like to capitalise on this,” Caffari said.

“I know the concept [of Stealth Mode] was created to encourage us to make some bold decisions and moves on the fleet, but in this case it is just to help plant the seed of doubt into the minds of our competitors as to how much extra pressure we may be enjoying out to the west.”

Team Brunel, in fifth just 35 miles back from the leaders, had to scramble to fix a broken outrigger, the pole which allows better trim for certain sails.

The end fitting sheared off, leaving the thread stuck inside the housing. After several of the team had a go at fixing it, it fell to newly crowned World Sailor of the Year Peter Burling to get the vital piece of equipment back up and running.

Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag might be 90 miles behind the leaders in sixth place, but spirits remain high on board.

“What still amazes me is the closeness of the fleet,” skipper Dave Witt told Volvo Ocean Race headquarters.

“We're going to go into the Doldrums no more than 50 miles apart from first to last, and in the past we've seen boats lose anywhere from 50 to 300 miles there. This leg is certainly a long way from over.”

#VOR - Dongfeng Race Team are retaining the lead they grabbed overnight from Vestas 11th Hour Racing. But with four Volvo Ocean Race boats within 11 nautical miles, it’s a tenuous lead at best.

Dongfeng skipper Charles Caudrelier pushed his crew hard, with the team completing at least six gybes overnight, significantly more than anyone else, in an effort to retain westward leverage on the leading pack.

From onboard reporter Jeremie Lecaudey: “‘I don't know where we’re going, but we’re going there!’ says Charles Caudrelier, skipper of Dongfeng, as he gets back inside the boat to check on the new weather report. The last few hours have been hectic, gybing from one pressure to another…

“Charles keeps checking behind the boat as if he was followed, to the right and suddenly up to check the clouds. He explains that you can read the different pressure coming in: ‘You don’t want rain, rain and wind don't work together…’”

Vestas 11th Hour Racing, who had the lead on Wednesday afternoon, had an agonising decision over how to protect that position.

“We’re the easternmost boat right now, we’ve had a good sked, but we’re feeling pretty exposed,” said navigator Simon Fisher. “The conservative thing to do would be to put a gybe in … it means giving up some of our lead, but in the fullness of time it’s the safer option.”

As of 11am this morning (Thursday 9 November), Vestas 11th Hour were 3.5nm behind the new leaders, with Team AkzoNovel and a speedy Team Brunel and MAPFRE jockeying for position between third and fifth.

#WorldSailor - America’s Cup winner Peter Burling has been named ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year — only the second Kiwi sailor to take the prize more than once.

The New Zealander, who previously shared the honour with compatriot Blair Tuke in 2015, was confirmed as the 2017 winner at a ceremony in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last night (Tuesday 7 November).

But Burling was unable to be there in person, as he’s currently busy on the deck of Team Brunel off the coast of North West Africa as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet slogs it out in the trade winds on their run south towards the doldrums.

Their first big strategic hurdle looms large in the first of several climate zone transitions the fleet will have to make on the way to Cape Town.

As of Wednesday afternoon (8 November), just four nautical miles separates first-placed Vestas 11th Hour Racing from Team AkzoNobel in fourth, with Burling’s Brunel boat losing some ground another 50 miles behind in fifth.

Mark Chisnell reviews their options for the Volvo Ocean Race website HERE.

#VOR - It was another fast night at sea for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet overnight with all teams staying north and west of Madeira, as the official race website reports.

Abby Ehler on Team Brunel — currently in seventh and last place — says the past 24 hours has been a ‘gybe-athon’, with the teams taking it by turns to make progress south and then west.

“Will be interesting to see how the next position report is going to be, as we placed ourselves closely to the northwest part of the island, to use the extra wind compression,” adds the boat’s skipper Bouwe Bekking.

“The next 24 hours we will have to make a call on how far west we go, before we finally make our turn south, one very critical point on this leg."

There are a couple of different options according to the weather models, so it could be an interesting day to see whether someone makes a break away from the rest of the fleet.

"Now the goal is to go west and find the good jibing point and choose where we would like to cross the Doldrums — not easy now that the game is completely open in the South Atlantic,” writes Charles Caudrelier on Dongfeng.

The Chinese boat is currently in fifth place within 13 nautical miles of leaders Vestas 11th Hour Racing, which made incredible gains of 25 nautical miles in just a couple of hours this morning (Tuesday 7 November), nipping more than 5nm past Scallywag, whose crew had one hell of a wipeout in yesterday’s big winds and big seas.

Fortunes were reversed for Annalise Murphy’s team Turn The Tide on Plastic, which slipped from an early morning second place to sixth as of 9am UTC — a loss of 8.5 nautical miles.

Skipper Dee Caffari was earlier looking to the forecast for easing winds as an opportunity to come back into the fleet.

“It seems we can have another 24 hours of this fun sailing before we get some slightly lighter winds,” she said. “Those in front will get them first allowing us to sail into the back of them, I hope, as we are all too aware that we cannot afford to get left too far behind before the Doldrums.

“He who exits first will gain huge and we will have another case of the rich getting richer.”

With less than 19nm separating first from last going into day three of the Leg 2, growing fatigue and is affect on decision making will surely become a bigger factor as the week progresses.

#VOR - The 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race shifts into a new phase on Sunday with the start of Leg 2: a 7,000 nautical mile, three-week marathon leg to Cape Town, South Africa.

It’s one of the iconic legs of this offshore classic as the teams transition from the North Atlantic, through the Doldrums, into the trade winds and may even dip a toe into the Southern Ocean before the finish in Cape Town, which has already been a stopover host 10 times — and recently hosted the Clipper Race fleet.

The tactical options on the leg have been opened up this year by the removal of a traditional waypoint, the island of Fernando de Noronha, about 170 nautical miles off the coast of Brazil.

While teams often sail as far west as this to pick up the trade winds earlier, it adds hundreds of miles to the route to Cape Town. Without this island as a mark of the race course, the shorter but normally slower option of sailing further east, down the coast of Africa, may be in play.

“It’s a very interesting one, maybe more interesting than in the past,” said Charlie Enright, skipper of Leg 1 winners Vestas 11th Hour Racing. “You usually have to go nearly all the way to Brazil… ‘West is best’ as they say…”

But it’s not clear that will be the case this time.

“I think [taking out the waypoint] changes things a lot,” said Sun Hun Kai/Scallywag skipper David Witt. “I think this will be an interesting leg and I think you might see the biggest split you’ve seen for a long time in the Volvo Ocean Race. But we’ll see what happens.”

“For sure you can go more east,” said Dongfeng Race Team skipper Charles Caudrelier. “The difference is huge, but it’s a danger [tactically]. It’s always a balance and it’s always difficult to know where to go. It will be a nightmare for the navigators.”

“Let’s see. Hopefully the others will go the short way and we’ll keep going west,” said Xabi Fernández. “It’s hard to know. It will be busy for [navigator] Juan Vila. But we trust his instincts and his work and hopefully we have a good crossing of the equator.”

“It’s a leg of 21 or 22 days with technical decisions to make every day,” said Simeon Tienpont, skipper of Team AkzoNobel, who has added the experience of Chris Nicholson, Jules Salter and Peter Van Niekerk to his crew for this leg.

In contrast, for many of the rookie sailors spread across the teams, Leg 2 will be the longest they have been at sea, and a new experience of true offshore sailing.

“We have crew on board who have never been at sea for longer than six or seven days at a time. So they will be on a steep learning curve,” said Turn The Tide on Plastic skipper Dee Caffari, who is shepherding some rookie offshore sailors through their first big ocean experiences on this leg. “This is the first one where you get a little taste of everything.”

Bouwe Bekking, sailing his eighth Volvo Ocean Race as skipper of Team Brunel, will take World Sailor of the Year and reigning America’s Cup winning skipper Pete Burling on his longest offshore sojourn, including a first Doldrums crossing that traditionally calls for a visit from King Neptune.

“We’re racing, but this is part of the tradition of the race, and that’s important,” Bekking said. “Someone like Peter Burling, there will be some nice footage of him, probably with a mohawk haircut or something like that… We have some extra items on board so that Neptune welcomes these guys properly.”

But first there is the start, including an inshore leg up the Tagus River to the Lisbon city front, before the teams break to the southwest for a drag race down to the warmer latitudes. The forecast is for 15 to 18 knot Northerlies on Sunday afternoon – it should be a fast start.

The first long leg of the 2017-18 edition – a 7,000nm, 21-day Atlantic dive from Lisbon to Cape Town – begins this afternoon (Sunday 5 November) and as previously reported on Afloat.ie, you can catch all the action live on the Volvo Ocean Race’s official channels.

#VOR - One of Annalise Murphy’s Volvo Ocean Race teammates had a lucky escape when she got her leg caught in a rope during the Mirpuri Foundation In-Port Race in Lisbon yesterday afternoon (Friday 3 November).

While the Dee Caffari-skippered Turn The Tide on Plastic finished in last place in the hard-fought in-port scrap — as previously reported on Afloat.ie — that was not for want of trying, with the team making some of the boldest moves off the starting line.

But for Liz Wardley that effort could have been for nothing as one sight misstep on deck while attempting to resolve a slackening sheet resulted in her being dragged at great speed across the boat, as this dramatic footage shows:

The boat captain was quickly rescued by her teammate Henry Bomby and onboard reporter Sam Greenfield, but was left with some severe bruising on her right leg.

Wardley herself explained what happened: “We were doing a gybe and I had to try and get the J1 [sail] through without twisting the battens around the forestay, and there was a lot of slack in the sheet. It went around both my legs and it started pulling me overboard and I got stuck in the lifeline.

“I was just scared I was going to break my leg [but] a couple of people came to my rescue and got me untangled pretty quick, so thank you.”

Greenfield added: “The conditions of today's race were challenging, we were sailing at about 14 knots when Liz caught her leg around one lap of the sheet, the guard wire and another line that goes over – basically it was caught between three things.

“The whole thing happened very quickly, she shouted and I quickly ran forward not knowing what was wrong but soon guessed that it was a bad situation.

“Liz's leg is pretty bruised - there was enough load to do some damage. We had to get her leg out of the guard wire and take the loop off. I'm just glad she's okay.”

While the in-port races are scored separately from the ocean legs, the series is used as a tie-breaker in the final points tally, so teams will take the discipline very seriously.

The races themselves are short, action-packed and held as close as possible to land. Winning the start is often the key to victory.

Be sure to tune in to the Volvo Ocean Race website tomorrow lunchtime (Sunday 5 November) for live coverage before the start of Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Lisbon to Cape Town at 2pm Irish time.

#VOR - Bouwe Bekking’s Team Brunel fended off a late charge by MAPFRE to win the Mirpuri Foundation In-Port Race Lisbon this afternoon (Friday 3 November).

Conditions were challenging to say the least for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, with squalls bringing rain and gusty, shifting winds.

Not only that, but the confines of the mouth of the Tagus River meant a short leg length, with four laps of the race course as set by Ballyholme’s own Bill O’Hara – meaning plenty of manoeuvres and boat handling for the teams.

“I think we did well, we’ve made huge steps as a team,” Bekking said following the race. “I mean it’s always nice to win but I think we sailed pretty nicely today. There was a huge wind shift at the end and that always makes the decisions tricky but I think we made the right calls.

“We sailed very conservative – as you will have seen we kept our big sail up, kept it simple and that worked very well for us today.”

“It was intense. We knew it was going to be difficult today with the squalls,” said

For Xabi Fernández, skipper of MAPFRE – who retain the lead of the In-Port Series after two races – the race was in a word: intense.

“We did a good start, but at the upwind mark, we were very slow, and trailed. But we came back, step by step and on the last lap we were in the right place for the shift. In the end, we finished second and we are happy with that.”

Off the starting line, it was Turn The Tide on Plastic, with Annalise Murphy among the crew, and Team AkzoNobel who made the boldest moves, crossing behind the rest of the fleet on port tack so they could sail out to the favoured right-hand side of the course. It paid off, with the pair rounding in second and third spot.

But Bekking’s Team Brunel led the charge, the furthest to the right of the rest of the fleet, making one less manoeuvre up the leg, and they were off.

Those three led for most of the first half of the race, but on the third upwind, a big right-hand shift shook things up, bringing MAPFRE and Dongfeng back into the mix and pushing Caffari’s Turn The Tide team back.

“It was a good job from the team, we managed to come back - we did some nice manoeuvres and even if it didn’t look great from the outside, I know we were efficient,” said Dongfeng Race Team skipper Charles Caudrelier. “We did a good job to finish third, we did good.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Caffari was disappointed with the second half of the race.

“Four laps, short course, really intense. First lap was absolutely glamour, second lap still on the podium and still fighting, third lap was full of disasters and fourth lap was just a write-off,” she said. “We crossed the line eventually but we had sailed ourselves from first to last.”

It was an epic day, setting up the start of Leg 2 from Lisbon to Cape Town this Sunday 5 November at 2pm Irish time.

#VOR - Leg 1 winners Vestas 11th Hour Racing weren’t the only Volvo Ocean Race team to have an excruciating finish experience en route to Lisbon yesterday (Saturday 28 October).

When MAPFRE was within 1.5 miles of the line, they too ran out of wind and had to watch Dongfeng Race Team rush into the river behind them. With only a small lead as a buffer, the tension for Spanish fans was rising fast.

But as Vestas did before them, the MAPFRE crew found a little zephyr of wind to finish 15-minutes ahead of the Chinese team at 5.42pm Irish time.

“Very pleased with the result. It’s a solid start, exactly what we wanted. We’re very happy,” said MAPFRE skipper Xabi Fernández immediately after finishing. “We have to say Vestas did very well early on and we didn’t see them again… But then we had a strong 12-hours after Gibraltar and we stepped it up there.”

Dongfeng Racing Team skipper Charles Caudrelier made an excellent recovery on Leg 1 after falling to the back of the fleet on the approach to Gibraltar.

And fight they did, slowly reeling in the fleet and finally recovering to pass Team AkzoNobel with only 220 miles to go, to complete the podium at 5.57pm Irish time.

“The first 24 hours was bad,” Caudrelier said. “After that we sailed very well with good speed and good decisions and finally we managed to pass AkzoNobel to finish in third so it was a good effort by the team.”

The drama didn’t end with the podium places decided. Just over an hour later, Team AzkoNobel were forced to fend off a late charge from Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag, who attempted to make the pass by sailing slightly closer to the coast. It nearly worked, too.

But in the end, Simeon Tienpont and his team grabbed fourth (finish at 7:11pm Irish time), with SHK/Scallywag settling for fifth (7:57pm Irish time).

“I’m unbelievably proud of the guys and girls on board,” Tienpont said. “I couldn’t say it enough during the leg to them… We went out with a full ‘street fight’ mentality and my compliments to all the sailors. The team morale was high and we sailed our socks off!”

“I’ve never finished like that before,” said Scallywag skipper David Witt. “We tried to get AkzoNobel by coming down the shore. It was pretty close… then we got stuck on the bottom… we had to swim an anchor out to get us off the rocks so we could drift across the finish line!

“[But] we’re really happy. We were right in there for most of it... We’re on the up. We’re getting better. Look out in a couple of legs time.”

The race for the final two positions was as intense as any that came before. Although it was a battle for sixth and seventh place, both Team Brunel and Turn The Tide on Plastic pushed as hard as possible to earn the extra point.

As with the boats in front, it was a slow-motion dance to the finish line, with Brunel gliding across in the dark, guided by America’s Cup star Peter Burling, to secure sixth place (9:29pm Irish time).

“We’re a bit frustrated,” said Team Brunel skipper Bouwe Bekking. “We weren’t very fast. We never reached out target speeds… but we’ve been fighting hard and it was actually an enjoyable leg … The boys and the girls sailed the boat nicely right to the end.”

That left seventh place for Dee Caffari’s Turn The Tide on Plastic, with Annalise Murphy among the crew, which crossed the line a few minutes later at 9.36pm Irish time.

“I’m gutted, we came last,” Caffari laughed at the dock after the finish, when it was suggested she'd be pleased with the result. “We just had the greatest two-boat testing with Team Brunel for 200 miles, so it was fantastic.”

Leg 1 – Results – Saturday 28 October (Day 7):

1. Vestas 11th Hour Racing -- FINISHED -- 14:08.45 UTC
2. MAPFRE -- FINISHED -- 16:42.30 UTC
3. Dongfeng Race Team -- FINISHED -- 16:57:48 UTC
4. Team AkzoNobel -- FINISHED -- 18:11:56 UTC
5. Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag -- FINISHED -- 18:57:44 UTC
6. Team Brunel -- FINISHED -- 20:29:00 UTC
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – FINISHED – 20:36:52 UTC

Volvo Ocean Race – Standings following Leg 1:

1. Vestas 11th Hour Racing -- FINISHED -- 8 points
2. MAPFRE -- FINISHED -- 6 points
3. Dongfeng Race Team -- FINISHED -- 5 points
4. Team AkzoNobel -- FINISHED -- 4 points
5. Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag -- FINISHED -- 3 points
6. Team Brunel – 2 points
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 1 point

#VOR - Vestas 11th Hour Racing have won Leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race, crossing the finish line in the River Tagus in Lisbon this afternoon (Saturday 28 October) a few hours later than expected.

While the team powered to the front after the first night out of Alicante and maintained pole position throughout the week, the final approach to Portugal was not an easy one.

That’s because the wind shut down on the final approach, and what had been a lead of 34 nautical miles over second-placed MAPFRE was whittled down to just 10 miles over the course of this morning.

With the finish so close and yet so far, with the current in the river even pushing the leaders back out to sea at times, the crew on the Vestas boat — among them Ireland's own Damian Foxall — held their nerve, tacking first up and then down, zigzagging towards the line, into agonisingly light headwinds.

The effort paid off for American skipper Charlie Enright and his team, who earn seven points plus a bonus point for the leg win for a total of eight on the board.

"It's incredible," said Mark Towill, Team Director, from on board the boat moments before the finish.

"What a way to kick off the event,” said tram director Mark Towill from the boat moments before it crossed the finish line.

“It's been an incredible performance for the team … It’s been a challenging leg. We still have a lot to improve and long way to go... Today is our day, we'll enjoy it, but then we have to get back to work and focus on the next leg.”

Vestas 11th Hour Racing – which carries US and Danish flags – also becomes the first American flagged team to win Leg 1, as well as the first Danish team to win a leg, while Charlie Enright is the third American skipper to win the first leg, after John Kostecki in 2001 and Paul Cayard in 1997.

“We try not to get too high or too low,” Enright said just after crossing the line. “We want to keep coming to work every day hungry to improve... one of the things we were focusing on was our decision making and communications on board and that’s coming along well... But there’s a lot of work to be done. We won't rest on our laurels!”

Continued light conditions near the shore are forecast to slow the pace of the Spanish MAPFRE team, which is expected to finish after 5pm Irish time. The Volvo Ocean Race website will be covering their arrival into Lisbon live this evenng and tomorrow.

1. Vestas 11th Hour Racing - Finished 14:08.45 UTC
2. MAPFRE + 9.3 nm
3. Dongfeng Race Team +20.3
4. team AkzoNobel +24.1
5. Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag +44.2
6. Team Brunel +66.4
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic +67.3

#VOR - Vestas 11th Hour Racing were the first team of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet to round Porto Santo in the early hours of this morning (Thursday 26 October), beginning the home stretch of Leg 1 to Lisbon.

But it’s still a closely run thing as the six boats behind had all passed the island within the next three hours and are running hard to the finish line.

The leaders, with Ireland’s Damian Foxall on deck, put the first gybe in after leaving Porto Santo to starboard, due to a large atmospheric wake off Madeira to the port side.

Next on the agenda is the new ‘virtual mark’ — a waypoint called Porto Santos North — due north of the fleet, before a slight right turn will take them to Lisbon and the finishing line.

0700 Position Report, all boats have passed Porto Santo and are running hard. #watchlog pic.twitter.com/LcWB8EWVhz

— Race Experts (@RaceExperts) October 26, 2017

Plain sailing it is not for Vestas and crew, who had a scare overnight when a hose popped off a water ballast tank and 800 litres of water that should have been helping to stabilise the boat instead flooded down to leeward down below.

However, the water was quickly bailed, the hose reconnected, and the team back up to 100%. The focus will be on keeping MAPFRE and Team AkzoNobel behind and setting up for the final approach to Lisbon for Saturday.

Further back in the fleet, Dongfeng Race Team is beginning to grind down the group of four fighting for fourth place, nearly two miles ahead of the tightly-grouped pack.

“It’s important to get around the island first. Now we are going to be sailing downwind, so the more you are north, the more you will be leading,” said navigator Pascal Bidégorry. “For this group, it is better to be ahead. That is why we pushed so hard overnight.”