© Volvo Ocean Race

Brasil1 Mark Rounding

Enlarge Photo

In-Port Showdown Confirms Speculation The 2005 edition of the
Volvo Ocean Race got underway yesterday off the Spanish port of
Sanxenxo, and while six of the seven teams had lined up alongside each
other in some unofficial fashion while training here, this was the
first real drag race-as much of a race as it could be in 5 knots of
wind. All the weather experts knew the day was going to be an
extreme light-air affair, and while two teams in particular preferred
to postpone until the following day, Juan Carlos, the King of Spain,
was the guest onboard the Spanish entry Movistar, and as this was his
only day available, the race, no matter how slow it was, had to go off
as planned. Six boats came to play, two boats from ABN AMRO, Brasil 1,
Ericsson Racing, Movistar, and Pirates of the Caribbean. The Australian
entry, Premiere Challenge, had just arrived from its delivery from
Belgium, and opted to watch from the sidelines before taking the boat
out to grind down its bulb in order to get the boat to within the
weight limit. As I landed at the Vigo airport, 40 minutes
south, of Sanxenxo, the starting sequence was already rolling, so no
thanks to overbooked international flights, I missed what was described
as a slow-paced, high-tension race; a race that demonstrated what was
already know of this new fleet of Volvo 70s-that the ABN AMRO boats
would suffer in light air and that Jason Carrington-built boats
(Ericsson and Pirates) would be light and fast. The race, as described
by ABN ..AMRO 2's tactician Andrew Lewis was a "lemon of a racecourse.
Ericcson won the left and one-tacked the first beat. At that point the
race was over." For the record, ABN's weather team encouraged them to
favor the right side of the racecourse and that they did, to no avail.
As for Ericsson's win and its 12-mile march to the top of the points
board with 3.5 points: "We're very happy," navigator Steve Hayles told
Volvo Ocean Race correspondent Andrew Rice in a post-race debrief.
"It's nice to see other boats cave in behind you, and to be able to
sail away." For John Kostecki, the team's dedicated in-shore
tactician, it played out like any other race. "Our weather guys were
saying to stay away from the shore, and that the pressure would be on
the left. We could see that there was better wind there and with our
start we were able to do exactly what we wanted to. We were actually
about two boatlengths off the line and Tim [Powell] was getting
anxious, but I told him to calm down and look over his
shoulder…everyone was late." Kostecki says the wind dropped at the
start, but as they continued left, they found more and more wind. "In
that stuff, 1 knot more is huge." As the official on-the-water correspondent, Rice had the best perspective and provided the following analysis on the Volvo Ocean Race website. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As for revealing anything meaningful about relative speeds of the
boats, he felt the race hadn't been that conclusive. Ericsson's race
was won in the first five minutes, after a spot-on start off the
left-hand of the line. "If you win the start, you look like you've got
a fast boat, and that's always the case," said Hayles. Skipper
Neal McDonald was delighted to have pulled off their pre-race game plan
with such precision. "We wanted the left, and we won the left. We had
the controlling hand. There wasn't anything magical about our
performance, other than getting a very good start. We shot out like a
cork from a bottle, and in any one-design fleet it would have looked
the same." Ericsson's weather team had suggested the left-hand
side of the course looked better for breeze, and the brain's trust on
board the boat agreed, John Kostecki included. The winning skipper of
the last Volvo Ocean Race certainly earned his fee today. "One down and
six more of these In Port races to go," said the American. "That was a
good marker to put down." One dilemma for the crews was how
best to use that 11th man slot. Do you opt for extra brains or extra
brawn? For much of this race, it looked like brains were the best bet,
with the top three boats all having opted for a boost to the
afterguard. Brasil 1 had the addition of ace Olympic talent Alan Adler,
and America's Cup skipper Pedro Campos took the helm of movistar. But
then at the final turning mark, Pirates outmanoeuvred the Spaniards and
stole their wind after a very smooth rounding and a slick hoist,
enabling them to roll movistar and claim the final podium position.
Perhaps the added muscle of America's Cup grinder Mark McTeigue aboard
Pirates wasn't such a bad choice after all. The race brought
very few hard and fast conclusions today, but it did call into question
the value of the big Code 0 upwind genoas that made an appearance on a
couple of boats today. ABN AMRO One started the race with such a sail
tacked out to the end of her bowsprit, but she looked slower than the
other five which had all opted for conventional jibs. This didn't seem
to deter movistar from hoisting one for the second beat. Having just
got right on the tail of Brasil 1 after a poor leeward mark rounding by
Torben Grael's team, it looked like the Spanish might be able to break
through into second place, much to the delight of the cheering
spectator fleet. Grael had stayed with his jib, so it would be
interesting to see if movistar's change of sail would pull them
through. But the Brazilians dived off left after Ericsson, and both
these boats again found good breeze to extend on the boats behind.
Pirates rounded in fourth and immediately tacked off left, with the
Spaniards yet to tack. When these two boats converged again, it was now
on level terms and Bouwe Bekking's decision to stay right had conceded
a three minute lead to Cayard in a very short time. A drag race then
ensued, an opportunity for these teams to gauge who had made the better
choice of sail. There was very little in it, perhaps just a slight edge
to the Pirates. But the real key came at that top mark. While
the extra size of the Code 0 and it's position not far forward of the
forestay means that it must be furled before the tack and unfurled
after the tack is complete, the smaller and simpler jib allows a much
smoother and faster manoeuvre. As movistar reached the mark and
embarked on the cumbersome furl/unfurl process, Pirates sliced through
their tack in half the time, and maintained much better momentum around
the mark. Even though the Spanish were much faster to hoist their
asymmetric, Cayard steered The Black Pearl into an attacking position
before hoisting. Two minutes later the Pirates had plundered the
Spanish wind supply and they rolled past them. For Cayard this
was a key moment. "I knew some of the guys had some specialty sails
measured in. I was fine with that, I chose not to have any specialty
sails measured in, because sail cards are very precious. There are only
24 of them, and we've only measured in eight sails, where other guys
have already measured in 14. It was very good to observe the work
they've done, and now we'll go to school on that and figure out how we
want to spend our cards. "We have a Code 0, we have a couple
of them in fact, but I'm not sure they're quite right yet. So I
accepted that we wouldn't use any specialty sails in this race, and
even if someone else used something different and it was a little
painful for us, we'd live with it, and also they'd be showing me that
something better." As it was, neither movistar nor ABN AMRO One
displayed exceptional pace with their Code 0 upwind sails. Have they
burned up one of their 24 cards already? Mike Sanderson put a
brave face on a woeful performance by the best-funded boat in the
fleet. In the preceding days he had made it clear that we shouldn't
expect a sparkling performance in light airs. ABN AMRO One is a
fat-bottomed girl who likes a good breeze to allow her to strut her
stuff. She doesn't like it light and fluffy. "I can walk down the dock
and I can show you the narrowest boat and I can show you the widest
one," said Moose. "It wasn't the biggest surprise. We always knew that
a six-knot In Port race - where we got the start wrong - would be our
biggest nightmare. I think I've said that publicly before. You know
that when you put your boat at one side of a fleet, you're going to
come first sometimes and other times you're going to come last. We're
still adamant we've the right boat for the race. I don't think we'll be
having this conversation in Cape Town." For today, the race
village remains crowded as crews take a break and debrief in
preparation for the move to Vigo next weekend. Check back here
regularly as I'll be bringing slices of life behind the scenes in the
lead-up to the November 12 start.