Telefónica edge PUMA in Sanya In-Port Race
by Volvo Ocean Race media 18 Feb 2012 08:33 GMT
18 February 2012
Telefónica edge PUMA in Sanya spectacular, extending overall lead
Team Telefónica held off a fierce challenge from PUMA to win the Sanya Haitang Bay In-Port Race on Saturday and extend their overall lead to 18 points before the start of Leg 4 to Auckland.
Telefónica went into the race under some pressure after a last minute change of rigging and with two poor performances in the three previous in-port races. But a smart decision to drive hard right off the start line took them clear of the fleet and despite the relentless challenge of PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG they went on to seal another valuable win. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing took the third podium place.
It was the second victory in four in-port races for Iker Martínez’s men, who have also won all three offshore legs. CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, their closest challengers in the overall standings, fought their way back up from sixth to fourth but it was a disappointing day for Chris Nicholson's team, who lost another three points to the leaders.
"Today the tactics were what made the difference," said Telefónica skipper Iker Martínez. "We were really in the right place for the upwind legs and the first downwind too. Even if we weren't great at manoeuvres, we were in the right place and that's what mattered."
PUMA skipper Ken Read was also satisfied with a performance that meant Telefónica could never quite be comfortable.
"We are pleased," said Read. "I think we did a really good job of it today. In a fleet like this we'll take second every day of the week."
Mike Sanderson’s hometown heroes on Team Sanya fought an incredible battle but were just edged into sixth by Franck Cammas’ Groupama sailing team.
Flat waters and winds gusting up to 20 knots provided perfect conditions for the fourth in-port race of the 2011-12 edition, allowing the teams to put on a spectacular show for the thousands of spectators who turned out to watch the action over a fast 10.8 nautical mile course.
Telefónica took the lead early, rounding the first mark with a 28-second lead over their rivals before a slow rounding at the second mark saw Ken Read’s PUMA close the gap to just three seconds.
For a while it was neck and neck and PUMA appeared set to pounce but Telefónica's superior speed saw them pull away and such was their dominance they were able to sail conservatively over the closing stages to ensure the win by a margin of 41 seconds. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing were four minutes and 20 seconds behind the leaders with CAMPER trailing by five minutes and 35 seconds.
The overall rankings remain unchanged. Telefónica now lead with 101 points, followed by CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand on 83 and Groupama sailing team on 73. PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG have 53, followed by Abu Dhabi on 43 and Team Sanya on 17.
Sunday sees the start of the 5,220 nautical mile Leg 4 from Sanya to Auckland at 1400 local time (0600 UTC). The leg start will be streamed live here on the home page of YachtsandYachting.com. Coverage will start 15 minutes prior to the race start (5:45am GMT).
Sanya Haitang Bay In-Port Race results:
1. Team Telefónica 58 minutes 37 seconds
2. PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG +0:41 seconds
3. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing +4 minutes 20 seconds
4. CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand +5:35
5. Groupama sailing team +6:51
6. Team Sanya: +7:13
Second place In-Port finish (from PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG)
The PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG crew returned to the podium, finishing second in the Sanya Haitang Bay In-Port Race in Sanya, China. PUMA’s Mar Mostro crossed the line with a time of at 0:59.18, .41 seconds behind Team Telefónica on Saturday, Feb. 18, during the third stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12.
“We’re very pleased with our finish today,” said skipper Ken Read. “The boat felt good, the guys did a great job, and Kelvin had two good shifts in the first beat that really determined the race. A fleet like this has no slouches, so we’ll take our second and build on it.
“We didn’t have a great start, and I think that kind of sealed our fate a bit with Telefónica,” Read continued. “The two of us had a nice little battle today – it felt like a really good boat race. They gave us very little chance to get by, as you would expect from them, so I give them credit."
PUMA’s Mar Mostro made their gains on the right side of the first beat of the in-port loop and rounded the first mark .28 behind Telefónica. They closed the gap to .3 seconds at the second mark as the two began separating from the rest of the fleet. The two boats continued to battle around the course, but Telefónica held on to the narrow lead through the finish line.
PUMA added five points for second place and remains in fourth place in the overall standings with 53 total points. Telefónica holds onto the top spot on the leaderboard with 101 points.
For Leg 4 from Sanya to Auckland, New Zealand, Volvo Ocean Race organizers have announced a split of the leg into two stages due to a tropical cyclone with up to 11-meter waves in the South China Sea. The first stage gets underway on Sunday, Feb. 19, at 14:00 local/06:00 UTC with the “Buddha course” – an approximate 40 nautical mile round trip to the Buddha statue at the Sanya Nanshan Temple and back to the Sanya start line, including the scheduled in-port triangle off the start. The fleet will then wait until conditions are deemed safe enough to sail again. The delay is not expected to extend beyond 24 hours. The fleet will re-start on Monday with a staggered departure on the second stage of Leg 4 in the order they finished Stage 1 of the leg. The entire Leg 4 journey will take the fleet approximately 5,220 nautical miles into Auckland.
“They’re estimating between 6-11 meter waves in the South China Sea – that’s serious boat breaking weather,” Read said on the Leg 4 change. “With these boats, it’s the waves that can really cause problems. We all know from sailing around this part of the world in the last race that the sea state is relentless and nearly sank three boats in the fleet. Volvo has erred on the side of caution to make sure the fleet stays safe and intact.
“When the boats are in conditions like that, it’s a bit of Russian roulette,” Read continued. “You can have all of the seamanship in the world, but you fall off one wave wrong and you can do some serious damage to people or boats. The last thing we want is for someone to get seriously hurt or the fleet to shrink.
“Also, when we’re out in the open ocean and a major weather system is coming our way, we can normally sail around the edge of it. This route to New Zealand goes straight through the South China Sea around the northern tip of the Philippines, and there’s no going around this weather system, no avoiding it. I know it was a tough call for Volvo, but I think they did the right thing.”
The PUMA Ocean Racing team is once again under the leadership of Read (Newport, Rhode Island, United States). Collectively, the crew has won the Around the World Race six times. The core includes: Tom Addis, Navigator (Sydney, Australia); Ryan Godfrey, Pitman (Adelaide, Australia); Kelvin Harrap, Helmsman, Inshore Tactician (Napier, New Zealand); Brad Jackson, Design Coordinator & Watch Captain (Auckland, New Zealand); Rome Kirby, Trimmer & Driver (Newport, Rhode Island, USA); Michael “Michi” Müller, Bowman (Kiel, Germany); Tony Mutter, Aerodynamics Coordinator & Watch Captain (Auckland, New Zealand); Casey Smith, Systems Manager & Bowman (Brisbane, Australia); Jonathan “Jono” Swain, Helmsman & Trimmer (Durban, South Africa); Amory Ross, Media Crew Member (Newport, Rhode Island, USA); Kimo Worthington, General Manager (Portsmouth, Rhode Island, United States); and Tim Hacket, Shore Team Manager (Sydney, Australia).
CAMPER ready to fight another day (from CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand)
It was not CAMPER’s day in Sanya for the Haitang InPort race. The shifty conditions got the better of Nicholson and his crew who, after a great start leading the fleet off the line, chose the left hand side of the course. This proved to be a critical decision with the wind shifting to the right and the fleet were split in two. CAMPER, Groupama and Sanya were left battling at the back. It was a battle that Spanish/New Zealand boat won pulling back two spots to claim fourth overall and salvage an additional two points on the leaderboard.
Speaking on the dock Nicholson commented, “We wanted to do better than that today, we got out of the start in good shape, then there was a big shift to the right, which we didn't get onto and we were caught right at the back at the top mark. However we fought our way back through the fleet but there wasn’t enough time to close the gap. I am looking forward to getting going tomorrow, we will have to wait until next leg to get the points back on Telefónica.”
Less than 24 hours remain until the start of Leg 4, a 5220-mile race to the City of Sails, Auckland in New Zealand. It is viewed as one of the most challenging legs of the race, particularly due to a section of the route, which will see the fleet pass through the Luzon Strait - a gate into the North Pacific. Sitting between Taiwan and the Philippines, it is a narrow passage between high land masses through which wind, current, tide and sea must all flow. The crews will also have to navigate through a minefield of ships and fishing boats. The combinations of northeasterly monsoons from Siberia and Japan, the infamous ‘black stream’ of the Kuroshio Current, which races north along the western part of the North Pacific and the shallow water, tides and the dozens of rocky islands scattered about make up the ingredients for a horrific sea state during a hard and nerve-racking upwind slog. During the last race, half the fleet broke here on their way to Northern China. This Volvo fleet won’t be going north but east, they will have to fight into teeth of the storm, so to speak, before they can round the island of Luzon and break out into the open water of the Pacific.
“This is a big leg there is no doubt about it, so we need to keep it sensible, there is a lot on the line and a very quick turnaround in Auckland, if you do one thing wrong and damage something then you could be looking at missing out on two leg results.” Skipper Chris Nicholson.
Before they reach the Philippines, the initial few days in the South China Sea look anything but inviting. Current forecasts predict the fleet will head into a strong north-easterly surge, with wind strengths between 25 - 35 knots and 4 – 5 metre seas.
“There could be the temptation to go hell for leather and make sure you are at the Philippines first, but we are experienced enough to temper that, we know that things can easily go wrong with that kind of attitude. We understand that we want to race to the Philippines, get there first, try and perhaps get a break forward after that, but in order to win this leg we need to keep the boat and the crew in one piece, ” Chris Nicholson.
The Spanish drive the point home! (from Groupama 4 in the Volvo Ocean Race)
It was a tough In-Port race off Sanya for the crew on Groupama 4, who didn't manage to anticipate the wind shifts, which were very unstable in terms of direction. Telefonica put up a virtually flawless performance in this race, way ahead of Puma and Abu Dhabi…
It proved to be a bad day for the French camp, which wasn't able to get into the rhythm of this hour-long race offshore of the marina in Sanya. In an easterly breeze of around fifteen knots, which was extremely variable in terms of direction and gusting up to twenty knots, it was tricky to read the race zone. It was necessary to anticipate these hefty rotations a long way in advance during the two laps of this 10.8-mile course. Indeed the proximity of the shore and the height of the landform, just a few miles from the playing field, made the breeze very fluky, on a flat sea beneath an overcast sky.
Two short laps and then…
“Today it was the tactics which made the difference. We were in the right place on the first beat and on the first downwind section. Even though we didn't get a very good handle on the manœuvres, with there only being ten of us, we were where we needed to be and that's what made the difference…” commented Iker Martinez following Telefonica's victory in this In-Port race. Basically the changes in the direction of the wind called upon the tacticians' services and always favoured the leaders. The Spanish were in particularly brilliant form, getting off to a good start at the Committee boat with Groupama 4 just to leeward of her. In the middle of the first beat, Telefonica was the first to tack and hit a big favourable gust which triggered a second change of tack, taking her straight towards the first course mark.
For Franck Cammas and his men, the first beat wasn't terrible since Groupama 4 rounded the mark in the wake of Abu Dhabi and Puma. However, it was the decision to immediately gybe like Ian Walker, which caused the situation to deteriorate: the steadier breeze towards the shore on the first beat died away without warning and the two boats were left floundering in a patch of light air, which enabled Camper and Sanya to come back very strongly. Indeed the Chinese boat really hampered the spinnaker dump manœuvre at the bottom of the course on the first lap. The next stage of the race became very complicated since the two leaders, Telefonica and Puma, had free rein in a more stable breeze, while their pursuers were both in dirty air, causing the New Zealanders to protest Sanya…
As a result the deficits at the finish were sizeable, despite barely an hour of racing, because nothing could stop the outright domination by the Spanish team, albeit with genoa sheet issues… Iker Martinez and his crew have thus boosted their position at the top of the overall ranking, since Camper only finished fourth and Groupama 4 finished fifth. With five victories out of seven races, the Iberians now boast an 18-point lead over the New Zealanders, who have a ten point lead over the French. As such the next offshore race, the start of which will take place on Sunday morning (0600 UTC) is very important for Franck Cammas and his men, if they are to stand a chance of scoring well in the ultimate standing and making up the delta with Camper. It's not likely to be easy with the first part of this 5,220 mile course to Auckland set to be very rough due to a monsoon of over 25 knots and raging seas, with waves in excess of six metres!
Quotes from the boat
“We're not happy with the result obviously! It was a whole set of small details which together caused us to lose the thread: we didn't manœuvre well, which put us into some complicated situations. The race zone was hard to make out and we still have some work to do on this short format racing… Our start was good but we are half a boat length down from being able to do a lot better. Most significant was the fact that we fluffed our first change of tack. After that, the first run under spinnaker didn't pan out as planned, even though our decision to gybe was justified as the wind was stronger on the beat along the right-hand side of the race zone. However, a few minutes later, the wind disappeared close to shore… Along with Abu Dhabi, we lost contact with the two leaders, added to which a laboured spinnaker dump enabled Sanya to get past us! Afterwards, everything went a bit pear-shaped as we got into difficulties as a result of no longer being able to make use of the tactical plan we'd set up. We need to be more consistent” explained Franck Cammas on his return from the In-Port race.
“We need to put this result behind us because it didn't go well! On one race out of an eight-month event, things can be good and bad. Today was a disaster… There's not a lot we can draw from it, we simply have to remain positive for the next stage because on Sunday we're heading off on a long leg where we're more at ease” commented Damian Foxall on the Chinese pontoons.