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Volvo Ocean Race 2011/2012 - Leg 2
Start 11. Dezember 2011
www.volvooceanrace.com - Übersicht Leg2
Tagesvideo
December 27, 2011 - 1400 UTC Leg 2 Day 17
DELICATE LOADING OPERATION BEGINS AFTER SAFE HAVEN ARRIVALS
Attention switched to a delicate operation to load the Volvo Ocean Race yachts onto a ship that will transport them to the United Arab Emirates following Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s arrival at a secret ‘safe haven’ in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday.
Abu Dhabi arrived in fifth place, the final boat that will be shipped following the arrivals of stage winners Team Telefónica followed by CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG and Groupama sailing team.
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Telefonica bei Geheim-Verladung
Foto: Paul Todd/VOR
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“I am upset not to have finished with a better result but on the other hand after the disaster of breaking our mast on Leg 1 I feel a strange feeling of relief to have at least completed the first part of the second leg,” Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker said.
As part of a raft of measures introduced by race organisers to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean, Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race has been split into two parts with the location of the safe haven kept secret.
As soon as Telefónica arrived on Monday, work began to prepare her for the risky loading operation, an unprecedented move in the 38-year history of the Volvo Ocean Race.
The five 15-tonne yachts are being craned 40ft into the air onto a ship with their 100ft masts still in place before being transported to the northern United Arab Emirates. Neither the sailors nor the shore crews will be on board the ship during the transit.
Telefónica and CAMPER were first to be loaded in calm seas followed shortly by PUMA’s Mar Mostro.
Groupama 4 and Abu Dhabi’s Azzam should be loaded in the next few hours.
The ship’s loadmaster said: “Things are going exactly to plan so far. And I’m hopeful that all of the boats will be lifted on safely by this evening.”
It is thought the ship will leave for the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, with the arrival due early in January.
The boats will then be unloaded and the leg will restart to Abu Dhabi, the Volvo Ocean Race’s first ever Middle Eastern stopover.
Team Telefónica will enter 2012 at the top of the overall leaderboard after picking up 24 points for winning the dramatic first stage of Leg 2 by an impossibly tight margin shortly before 1800 UTC on Monday.
They move seven points ahead of CAMPER, who they pipped to the line by one minute and 57 seconds after more than 4,000nm of racing.
PUMA Ocean Racing followed just over five hours later with Groupama coming in three hours later still.
“We went into this leg with confidence,” said a disappointed PUMA skipper Ken Read. “It’s a bit of a shame because we had a couple of points in this leg where we did really the right thing and put ourselves in the right position.”
Groupama skipper Franck Cammas added: “It’s frustrating because five days ago we were imagining winning the leg.
“The Doldrums was bad, and then the light spots at the end were bad. We know these conditions are not good for our boat and for our speed but for sure we didn’t manage the start very well.
“Maybe we were too frustrated before and we tried to come back with an option that was just too risky. It was a mistake, I think. We need to be more patient and not fight all the time for first place.”
Team Sanya, the sixth boat in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, were forced to suspend racing and head for Madagascar after suffering rigging damage while in the lead on Day 9.
Their current focus is on getting the boat in the best shape possible for Leg 3 into their home port of Sanya in China.
December 27, 2011 - 0900 UTC Leg 2 Day 17
MIXED EMOTIONS AS ABU DHABI OCEAN RACING REACH SAFE HAVEN
Leg 2 Report: 27/12/2011 9:23:58 UTC
&xnbsp; DTL DTLC BS
1 TELE (STE) FIN 2 CMPR (STE) FIN 3 PUMA (STE) FIN 4 GPMA (STE) FIN 5 ADOR (STE) FIN - SNYA Suspended Racing Overall
LEG 2A Overall 1 Team Telefónica 24 61 2 CAMPER with Emirates Team NZ 20 54 3 Groupama Sailing Team 12 36 4 PUMA Ocean Racing by BERG 16 25 5 Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 8 17 6 Team Sanya 0 4
Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing arrived in the Volvo Ocean Race safe haven on Tuesday in fifth place, meaning all the boats being shipped to Abu Dhabi have completed the first stage of Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Ian Walker’s crew crossed the line at 08:56:38 UTC, 15 hours behind stage winners and overall race leaders Team Telefónica.
Stepping off his team’s Volvo Open 70 Azzam for the first time in 16 days, British double Olympic silver medallist Walker said he had mixed feelings about the result.
“I am upset not to have finished with a better result but on the other hand after the disaster of breaking our mast on Leg 1 I feel a strange feeling of relief to have at least completed the first part of the second leg,” he said.
“To have failed to make the stopover in Abu Dhabi would have been absolutely disastrous for the team and the stopover.”
A thrilling finale to the race, from Cape Town to an undisclosed ‘safe haven’ in the Indian Ocean saw Iker Martínez’s Telefónica edge out arch-rivals CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand by just one minute and 57 seconds after more than 50 days’ sailing.
PUMA Ocean Racing, who also suffered a broken mast in Leg 1, took third place finishing at 23:33:10 UTC on Monday, with Groupama sailing team more than two hours behind arriving in the safe haven at 02:04:20 UTC on Tuesday.
During the first stage of Leg 2, Abu Dhabi held the lead on five separate occasions but fell foul of a low pressure trough that blocked the fleet’s path for several days.
After making back more than 150 nm on the leaders, a slow Doldrums crossing all but sealed Abu Dhabi’s fate.
“It has been a very bizarre leg and one during which we have scarcely seen another boat after the first night despite a very conservative strategy,” Walker added.
“Fifth place does nothing to help get us back up the leaderboard where we wish to be and every member of the crew is feeling the pain.
“One thing that gets to me is that the guys have sailed the boat pretty well and yet all the effort expended actually now counts for very little in terms of reward.”
Walker said his crew would regroup at the safe haven and turn their focus to the second part of the leg into their home port of Abu Dhabi.
“There is no shame in being beaten by any of the teams in this race and the pain of finishing fifth will make the taste of future victories even sweeter,” he said.
To reduce the risk of piracy, race organisers implemented a stealth zone in which the positions of the yachts were withheld for the latter part of the leg to mask the identity of the safe haven port.
The five boats will now be loaded on to a ship – a risky manoeuvre that has never been done in the race before – and transported to a point off the Sharjah coastline in the northern United Arab Emirates, from where the leg will be completed with a day-long sprint to Abu Dhabi.
Team Sanya, the sixth boat in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, was forced to suspend racing and head for Madagascar after picking up rigging damage while in the lead on Day 9.
Their current focus is on getting the boat in the best shape possible for Leg 3 into their home port of Sanya in China.
December 27, 2011 - 0215 UTC, Leg 2 Day 17
DOLDRUMS DEBACLE MEANS GROUPAMA MISS OUT ON TOP THREE
Groupama sailing team had to settle for fourth place in Leg 2, Stage 1 after disappointment in the Doldrums cost them a hard won lead.
Franck Cammas and Groupama 4 began Leg 2 from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi with such promise, leading the fleet on day two. But they quickly descended into last place on day four after splitting from the fleet and heading south, following the old adage ‘if you don’t know where to go in the Atlantic, you have to go west; and if you don’t know where to go in the Southern Ocean, you have to south’. It was a move reminiscent of their Leg 1 strategy where they chose to plough a lonely furrow, away from the index body of the fleet.The five other teams watched intently as they herded east. Last place belonged to Groupama 4 until December 18, day eight, when the team at last started to make good progress and rose to second place, their southerly gamble placing them further east, giving them a more constant breeze and a better angle of sailing .
“We have ended up in a different option for two legs now,” said an undeterred Cammas. “It certainly comes from our experience with multihulls in France,” he explained.On day 10, 0700 UTC December 20, Groupama 4 became the new leader, having a clear advantage over the rest of the fleet and enjoying true trade wind sailing at its best.&xnbsp; Beam reaching at 20 knots, it was the French team’s easterly position that had paid dividends at last, while the rest of the fleet was battling uncomfortable headwinds.&xnbsp; “We are leading at the moment and it’s great,” wrote Cammas.&xnbsp; “There are lots of smiles on the faces when the reports come in now,” he said.But the Doldrums was fast approaching, and Cammas needed to put as many miles as he could between Groupama 4 and the chasing pack.
On day 11, Cammas had just 24 hours to translate his 45 miles of lateral separation into distance ahead. The team was focused, teasing every ounce of speed out of the boat in order to give themselves the best shot possible at crossing the 300-mile belt of Doldrums in the lead.They continued to set a blistering pace, extending their lead at every opportunity. “The race is far from over,” Cammas said. “We will enter the light wind area and the fleet will compress,” he forewarned. But, for the moment, the French rocket ship was in first place and led the fleet into the stealth zone put in place to protect the boats from unwanted attention of pirates.
Cammas took Groupama 4 into the Doldrums at the western end and her speed started to decrease and, on day 13, December 23, Cammas relinquished his lead to Telefónica. Groupama’s lead of 70 nm had slowly dissolved and by 1900 UTC that night, the team was in deficit by 62 nm. The team was disappointed, their hopes dashed by the minefield of clouds and squalls. “Offshore racing is like that,” wrote MCM Yann Riou. “One day you feel very strong, the next very miserable. You have to take it as it is, or do another job,” he said.Groupama 4 had indextained third position on Christmas Day, but on Boxing Day, PUMA’s Mar Mostro had stolen her spot after a night of intense racing. Although it was down to the wire for the leading pair, Telefónica and CAMPER, PUMA’s Mar Mostro was now a safe 15 nm ahead and Groupama 4 finished outside the top three.&xnbsp;
Groupama finished at 0204:20 UTC, more than two hours behind PUMA, and eight hours behind Telefónica and CAMPER. &xnbsp;
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