Skipper Charles Caudrelier led his team to victory on the final leg of the race, a 970-mile sprint from Gothenburg, Sweden to The Hague.

Incredibly, it marked the first leg win for the team – it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Three teams started Leg 11 of the race in a dead heat on the overall leaderboard. The finishing order between MAPFRE, Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team at The Hague would determine their place on the overall race podium.

Each of those three teams led at various points on the leg and had their opportunities to grab the prize.

But it was Caudrelier and his crew who made a bold call on Saturday evening to take a coastal route to the finish, which squeezed them tight against the shoreline and separated from the other leaders by a series of Exclusion Zones.

“We were not in such a good position, but we trusted our choice and we pushed,” Caudrelier said. “The others didn’t follow us, but we believed and we won…”

The decision hurt the team in the short term as they tumbled down the leaderboard. But by Sunday morning, with less than 100 miles left to race, weather routing projections had the top boats finishing within minutes of each other. None had been able to break away overnight, despite the significant splits on the race course.

“We knew that we would fall behind initially and that if it came good it would only be at the end. The last position report (1300 UTC on Sunday) we were 27-miles from the finish and they were 20-miles and we thought it was over. But then I did a small weather routing and it showed we could end up one-mile ahead so I woke everyone up and said, ‘let’s push!’”

As the teams finally converged again on Sunday afternoon, just a few miles from the finish, it was Dongfeng Race Team, flying down the coast from the north sliding in front of the offshore group, to earn their first leg win, propelling Caudrelier’s team to overall victory.

“We always trusted each other. Nobody thought we were going to win this last leg, but I had a good feeling,” an emotional Caudrelier said, after thanking his supporters and team. “I said ‘we can’t lose, we can’t lose, we can’t lose’… and we won!”

The overall results make this the closest finish in the 45-year history of the race and marks the first win for a Chinese-flagged team. It also means Carolijn Brouwer and Marie Riou were on board as the first women sailors to win the Volvo Ocean Race.

Xabi Fernández’s MAPFRE was third on the leg, which put the team into second overall.

“It has been tough,” Fernández admitted. “We sailed very well the whole way around the world and on this leg as well, so naturally we’re a bit disappointed. We were very, very close this time, but it was not quite enough. So we have to say congratulations to Dongfeng who sailed a little bit better than us.”

Team Brunel skipper Bouwe Bekking would have liked nothing more than to win the race for the first time in eight tries with a home finish in The Netherlands. But it wasn’t to be. His fourth-place leg finish left the team in third place overall.

“Third place, still on the podium, I think we can be pretty proud of that as a team,” he said. “We thought we had made the right choice (to go further offshore) and we expected a windshift. It came 90-minutes too late and that was the race. But that’s yacht racing. And, of course, we have to congratulate Dongfeng and MAPFRE for their results.”

Second place on the final leg into The Hague was Dutch skipper Simeon Tienpont and his team AkzoNobel, who had previously secured fourth place on the overall leaderboard.

“It’s incredible to finish on the podium in our hometown,” Tienpont said. “We would have loved to have been fighting into The Hague for the final podium but to have set the 24-hour speed record and to get six podium finishes in the race is a testament to the job everyone on our team – on the boat and on shore – have done.”

Vestas 11th Hour Racing had already been locked into fifth place on the scoreboard and after a promising start to Leg 11, had a disappointing seventh place finish on the leg.

“We have a great group of folks on this team,” skipper Charlie Enright said. “We’ve been through a lot and I’m not sure any other group could have dealt with the challenges we have faced the way we did. It’s something special and we’re going to continue to work together moving forward. This was a tough way to go out certainly, but we have one more opportunity with the In-Port Race this weekend.”

That In-Port Race, scheduled for Saturday afternoon, will determine the sixth and seventh place positions in this edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. Both SHK/Scallywag and Turn the Tide on Plastic finished the Volvo Ocean Race on equal points.

The tie-break mechanism is the In-Port Race Series, where David Witt’s Scallywag team currently holds the lead. But Dee Caffari’s Turn the Tide on Plastic is just three points behind and a strong finish on Saturday could lift them off the bottom of the leaderboard.

“We can’t help but smile today. We’ve done it,” said Caffari. “This leg was like the longest In-Port Race ever. A lot of corners to go around, and we gave it 100 per cent and left nothing in the tank.”

For David Witt, the finish was bittersweet the loss of John Fisher overboard in the Southern Ocean top of mind.

“I have very mixed emotions right now,” Witt said dockside immediately after finishing. “I’m incredibly proud of our team both on and off the water. We’re very tight and we have gone through a lot… But I’m also sad of course. I didn’t finish it with my best mate (John Fisher) who we started with. So very mixed emotions, but I’m glad we finished it.”

The teams will celebrate their accomplishments and take well-earned rest on Monday. The rest of the week will see activities in The Hague building towards the final In-Port Race and Awards Night on June 30.

Volvo Ocean Race Leg 11 Final Leaderboard – Saturday 23 June

1. Dongfeng Race Team – 3 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes, 32 seconds

2. team AkzoNobel – 3 days, 3 hours, 38 minutes, 31 seconds

3. MAPFRE – 3 days, 3 hours, 39 minutes, 25 seconds

4. Team Brunel – 3 days, 3 hours, 45 minutes, 52 seconds

5. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 3 days, 3 hours, 56 minutes, 56 seconds

6. SHK / Scallywag – 3 days, 4 hours, 01 minutes, 32 seconds

7. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 3 days, 4 hours, 05 minutes, 36 seconds

Volvo Ocean Race Overall Points Leaderboard after Leg 11

1. Dongfeng Race Team – 73 points

2. MAPFRE – 70 points

3. Team Brunel – 69 points

4. team AkzoNobel – 59 points

5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 39 points

6. SHK / Scallywag – 32 points *

7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 32 points *

The post Bold Split Earns Dongfeng Its Volvo Ocean Race Win appeared first on Sailing World.

With the win, Bekking’s Brunel is just three points off the lead, meaning the final two European legs will be more important than ever. Although Brunel sits in third place this morning, the Dutch entry is riding a wave of momentum.

Leg 9, from Newport to Cardiff, day 7 on board Brunel. Peter Burling at the helm. 25 May, 2018.

Since the team hit a low point at the conclusion of Leg 6 after arriving in Auckland with a sixth-place finish, Bekking and crew have posted a 1-2-1 scoreline, including important wins on the final two double-point scoring legs, to move from also-ran status on the leaderboard to holding down a firm grip on a podium position with an eye on the top spot.

“We’re very happy with the result – to beat the two red boats (Dongfeng and Mapfre) was the objective,” Bekking said after crossing the finish line. “Winning of course is nice, as well as to get the bonus point and then a nice fight to beat AkzoNobel in the end as well, so we’re a happy team.

“But the aim is to keep looking forward. We’ve closed the gap to Mapfre and Dongfeng and victory remains our main objective.”

To earn the leg win, Bekking had to fend off fellow Dutch skipper Simeon Tienpont’s team AkzoNobel, who had held a nominal lead of a few hundred meters just hours before the finish.

But in the strong currents and light winds of the Bristol Channel, Bekking and his crew found a way to claw back in front and then protected over the final miles to take the win by just 4 minutes and 05 seconds over team AkzoNobel.

Leg 9, from Newport to Cardiff, arrivals. 29 May, 2018.

For Tienpont’s AkzoNobel, Leg 9 will be long remembered for the amazing record-breaking effort the team made in setting a new standard for 24-hour distance run in the Volvo Ocean Race.

On Friday, in ideal conditions, the team AkzoNobel crew obliterated the previous race record set in a Volvo Ocean 70 by Ericsson 4 in 2008. The new mark is a 602.51 nautical mile, 24-hour run.

“This was an incredible race,” Tienpont said from on board at the finish line. “I’m unbelievably proud of the crew. We kept pushing all the way to the finish line and we’re happy with second place.

“We enjoyed setting a record that hopefully will be hard to beat. It’s been a leg full of emotions and we’re looking forward to the last two legs. We’ve done unbelievably well since Melbourne. From there onwards we’ve scored more points than Mapfre and Dongfeng. So the confidence is there and as a crew we’re enjoying it so much. We’ll just keep fighting and do what we did on this leg.”

Dongfeng Race Team skipper Charles Caudrelier has elevated his team to the top of the race leaderboard for the second time since the start of the race. With a sixth podium finish the most consistent team in the race controls its own destiny at the head of the fleet.

“It’s nice, but it’s a very small lead to Mapfre and now Brunel as well who are making a fantastic comeback,” Caudrelier said dockside after the finish. “It’s going to be interesting for fans to follow as the race is far from finished. The level is very even and it’s a big fight for every place… we would have preferred an easier finish.”

While Brunel has been ascendant on the last three legs and Dongfeng consistently among the leaders, MAPFRE roared out to a fast start in the opening legs but has struggled of late.

Even on the recent leg into Newport, which was scored a win, the Spanish team trailed for nearly all of the leg, making a miraculous comeback from fifth to first in the final 24 hours. The team will need to regain its early form if it is to make one more comeback and win the race.

“It hasn’t been an easy leg for us. It’s been painful from day one and we never could catch up,” said skipper Xabi Fernández. “But looking forward we feel confident. Hopefully we can start well and fight boat to boat over the next two legs.”

Scoring a fourth-place finish on the leg was Charlie Enright’s Vestas 11th Hour Racing. The team has prided itself on its podium finishes, but this leg marks its worst result across the finish line in the race.

However, having missed three crucial legs in the middle of the race, the team’s position on the overall leaderboard is all but locked in at fifth place.

“It was a disappointing leg from a results standpoint, but that doesn’t take away from what was a good crossing for the team,” Enright said. “We’ve overcome a lot more than just a bad result in this race and now we have two legs left to put our best foot forward and end on a good note.”

Volvo Ocean Race Projected Leaderboard after Leg 9

1. Dongfeng Race Team – 60 points
2. MAPFRE – 59 points
3. Team Brunel – 57 points
4. Team AkzoNobel – 48 points
5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 36 points
6. SHK / Scallywag – 29 points
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 26 points

The post Team Brunel Continues Late Charge to the VOR Podium appeared first on Sailing World.

Hailing From: China | Skipper: Charles Caudrelier | Navigator: Pascal Bidégorry

If it weren’t for its Southern Ocean dismasting in the 2014-15 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, Dongfeng Race Team could very well have gone on to win on its first try. But in this race, what-ifs mean nothing when it comes to the final results. Instead, the international crew finished third, an incredible performance for its French skipper Charles Caudrelier, who spent a formidable portion of his campaign training up Chinese sailors from scratch.

Not this time. Caudrelier retained a few of his essential crewmembers, as well as his talented Chinese crewmen “Wolf,” “Black,” and “Horace,” and has spent the better part of the year entrenched at home in Lorient, France, honing the collective skills of a talented and diverse cast of sailors. He has his returning navigator Pascal Bidégorry by his side and New Zealanders Stu Bannatyne and Daryl Wislang, who won with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing. Olympian Marie Riou and Team SCA alum Carolijn Brouwer, are in the mix, as is one of the most outstanding young sailors in the singlehanded offshore-racing world, Jack Bouttell, of Australia.

“The team is very diverse,” says Bouttell, Donfeng’s under-30 bowman, “and while that brings complications, it also brings a lot of strengths. With a lot of the same people from the last campaign, most everyone knows what works best and what makes people happy.”

The team has been training in France almost full-time since late January, exploring the nuances of the boat and its new sail inventory. In the previous edition, Dongfeng was considered to be one of the quickest in light air, but by the end of the race, other teams had adapted its trimming style.

“With this race, the speed differences will be much closer,” says Bouttell. “We have one extra sail (J-Zero) and the other sails are slightly different shapes, so we’ve been working on where the sail crossovers are and where the J-Zero sits in that inventory. It’s a big part of it, trying to work out how to fit that sail into the crossover.”

Between the four sails that fly off the bowsprit and the J1, he says, there are times when the crossovers are very, very small, and finding the sweet spots will prove to be the difference.

The disappointment of the last race is long gone from Caudrelier’s mind, but the experience does motivate him, says Bouttell. “He’s a very solo-minded sailor and takes everything upon himself — not in terms of doing it, but bearing the responsibility for the success of the entire campaign. The take-away from that race, I believe, was that recovering from big incidences like that is part of the head game we have to win. We’ll be stronger having dealt with it.”

While Dongfeng might be considered an early favorite on account of its deep crew and its early preparation, Bouttell is adamant that Caudrelier and anyone else in the Dongfeng camp doesn’t believe so. “We’ve had good progress, but there is a lot of work to do. We’re pushing 100 percent like everyone else to be the best we can.”

Caudrelier’s greatest asset, Bouttell adds, is that he trusts everyone to perform in their areas and leaves it to the individuals to excel, just as they would as solo sailors. “Charles is one of the most determined guys I’ve ever met,” says Bouttell. “His mindset is to go fast, and that’s what we are here to do with him.”

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