Volvo Ocean Race: Next stop, Doldrums

(April 29, 2018; Day 7) – After two days on starboard as the Volvo Ocean Race teams worked their way north along the Brazilian coastline, the past 24 hours saw the wind clock to the southeast and the teams gybing along the northeast tip of the continent.

Now free of South America, the next 24 hours will be about entering the doldrums to the north, although with the fleet this far west, it is expected to be the easiest of the four crossings in this race.

With Vestas hopping over Plastic in the past day, Brunel has moved up as well. “Sometimes you have to be patient, don’t gybe early when you see another boat gybing, play you own wind at this stage,” notes Brunel skipper Bouwe Bekking. “So made good gains in the boats ahead of us and left the ones behind us.”

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet tracker, which provides position updates every six hours, as well as live coverage during the first and last 24 hours of each leg, will be live for the final three legs of the race, and in live test mode most for the remainder of Leg 8 to Newport, USA.

Props to the race organizer for taking this step, and eliminating the “Stealth Mode” feature that allowed teams to hide their position from their rivals and from fans for three consecutive six-hourly position reports.

However, this doesn’t change the situation on board the boats as the sailors will still only receive position reports every six hours, or via AIS when they are within about 10 miles of each other.

For crew lists… click here.

Race details – Tracker – Scoreboard – Race route – Facebook – YouTube

Leg 8 – Position Report (19:00 UTC)
1. Vestas 11th Hour Racing (DEN/USA), Charlie Enright (USA), 3279.1 nm DTF
2. Turn the Tide on Plastic (POR), Dee Caffari (GBR), 3.6 nm DTL
3. Team Brunel (NED), Bouwe Bekking (NED), 7.2 nm DTL
4. Dongfeng Race Team (CHN), Charles Caudrelier (FRA), 13.7 nm DTL
5. Team AkzoNobel (NED), Simeon Tienpont (NED), 34.0 nm DTL
6. MAPFRE (ESP), Xabi Fernández (ESP), 46.8 nm DTL
7. Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (HKG), David Witt (AUS), 72.4 nm DTL
DTF – Distance to Finish; DTL – Distance to Lead

COURSE: Starting on April 22, Leg 8 takes the teams from Itajaí, Brazil to Newport, USA. Race organizers choose to estimate the tactical distance for each leg rather than list the actual distance, an unusual decision that’s revealed once the race starts and the tracker lists the actual distance to finish. The organizers say Leg 8 is 5700 nm whereas the actual distance from the tracker is 5027 nm.

2017-18 Edition: Entered Teams – Skippers
• Team AkzoNobel (NED), Simeon Tienpont (NED)
• Dongfeng Race Team (CHN), Charles Caudrelier (FRA)
• MAPFRE (ESP), Xabi Fernández (ESP)
• Vestas 11th Hour Racing (DEN/USA), Charlie Enright (USA)
• Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (HKG), David Witt (AUS)
• Turn the Tide on Plastic (POR), Dee Caffari (GBR)
• Team Brunel (NED), Bouwe Bekking (NED)

Background: Racing the one design Volvo Ocean 65, the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain on October 22 2017 with the final finish in The Hague, Netherlands on June 30 2018. In total, the 11-leg race will visit 12 cities in six continents: Alicante, Lisbon, Cape Town, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Auckland, Itajaí, Newport, Cardiff, Gothenburg, and The Hague. A maximum of eight teams will compete.

Source: Volvo Ocean Race