A race of all seasons

madforsailing looks at what's up on leg eight of the Volvo Ocean Race

The penultimate leg of the Volvo Ocean Race kicks off at 1500GMT today and will take the eight boats on a European tour from La Rochelle round Ushant on the northwestern tip of France, up the Channel, across the North Sea round a turning mark off Norway before descending to the Swedish port of Gothenburg, in the heartland of Volvo.

After many thousand miles of ocean racing, this leg is rather different being probably the most arduous on the navigators. The course is very coastal and takes the boats close to or through many island groups such as the Channel Islands or the archipelago off the Norwegian coast at Arendal. At Dover the boats will negotiate the world's busiest shipping lane and because of this the race committee have been strict to ensure that the boats stay to the north of the westbound shipping lane. So keen have the race committee been to play it safe that they have put 30 waypoints into the sailing instructions for this leg, which has caused some whinging among the navigators.

Also significant is that the course is heavily tidal and any boats that break from the pack could conceivably make a tidal gate and get away, a feature that anyone who has done the Fastnet Race is all too aware. But with only one leg to go the race is likely to become more tactical and therefore very close and the chances of anyone making the break are very low.

Weather

Weather wise the dominant feature today is a depression over Ireland that News Corp meteorologist Nick White says will give about 20 knots from the south west for the start. However the wind will clock around to the west or north west as a front passes through tonight making it a one tack beat to get up to the first significant waypoint off the Raz de Sein in one tack before they have to head north to round Ushant.

Sailing down the Channel will be a very broad reach in around 30 knots with the wind just south of west. This will provide some lively sailing with boat speed surging into the 20s. Unfortunately for those looking to make up ground on the front runners the first boat round Ushant will have a big advantage and as it will be almost a straight line sail to Dover there will few passing lanes.

These conditions will hold until the boats are into the North Sea when the gradient gets less and the boats increasingly come under the influence of an occluded front hovering over Scandinavia. This will give those behind the opportunity to play catch up.

At this point the navigators we have been speaking to start looking nervous and rubbing their hands, as currently it is too early to tell what the weather holds in store for the final section of the race other than it looks very unlikely to be as fast as the opening stage. SEB navigator Marcel van Triest says that one weather model shows the final passage from Norway to Gothenberg being a light weather beat.

So in short, the wide variety of conditions on this leg are unlikely to favour one boat and interestingly the fresh upwind conditions and hard running conditions that will dominate the first half of the leg - neither are race leader illbruck's forte - and it is entirely possible that the results into Gothenburg will throw up some surprises.

(for more on the weather see the comments from illbruck's meteorologist Chris Bedford on page 2...)

What's the point

Pos	Name	Pts
1	illbruck Challenge	49
2	ASSA ABLOY	41
3	Amer Sports One	36
4	Team News Corp	34
5	Team Tyco	33
6	Team SEB	26
7	djuice	23
8	Amer Sports Too	10

illbruck now maintains an eight point lead over second placed Assa, so it will take more than Assa to win and illbruck to break and limp in last for Neal McDonald's posse to win. Assa winning both legs and illbruck losing nine points over the course of two legs would secure it, but this prospect is highly unlikely even if the worst performances of John Kostecki's team have been on the coastal legs.

There will be some more interesting wrangling taking place in the mid-fleet where just four points separate Tyco, News Corp and Amer Sports One. Then there is the rogue element - SEB and djuice, both Scandinavian boat keen to put in a good result into the Scandinavian port. There is such hunger there that I think it highly likely that one or other of these boats will get on the podium on this leg.

What's different?

Remarkably quite a lot. There have been crew changes on all the boats with the exception of Amer Sports One.

The most significant change has been a complete revamp of the afterguard on board djuice. Jean-Yves Bernot has had enough on got off. It has been rumoured that the ace French navigator and weather guru Bernot did not get to grips with the idea of the Volvo Ocean Race as a tactical fleet race. On board instead is Team New Zealand's Erle Williams, who is not only taking over navigational duties, but also tactical ones. In effect Williams and not skipper Knut Frostad will be making the tactical calls.

Also interesting about djuice is that they are taking 11 and not 12 crew. The reason it has been mooted is to save weight, but this seems unusual on a leg where conditions look to be strong for at least the first two thirds of the course. David Jarvis has stepped down for this leg.

On board illbruck John Kostecki has recognised that if their otherwise immaculate programme has a short fall then it is on shorter, more tactical courses and for this reason Noel Drennan has stepped off to be replaced by former Star World Champion Ed Adams. Adams has been involved with the team since the outset and was originally responsible for setting up their two boat test programme, as he had for the Young America, America's Cup team.

Particularly contentious is the return of Steve Cotton to the race. Cotton was one of a flood of dissatisified crew to depart Jez Fanstone and Ross Field's team including his former Yamaha teammate Jeff Scott and Jon Gundersen both of whom have returned to the race, Scott on board djuice and Gundersen on SEB. Cotton has followed the latter to SEB. He replaces Prada's Gavin Brady on Gunnar Krantz's Swedish team.

News Corp and ASSA have both made minor changes, Stuart Childerley returning home to deal with his agregrate business and being replaced by Team Tonic skipper Jeremy Robinson. Similarly Frenchman Jules Mazar steps back on board Neal McDonald's team in place of Guillermo Altadill.
Watch systems chaning.

Tyco have made two crew changes. The old warhorse Mike Quilter (navigator for Peter Blake on Steinlager 2, New Zealand Endeavour, Merit Cup, etc) has taken a brief respite from his weather duties at Team New Zealand to step back on board Tyco, replacing Damian Foxall who was always planning to step off in La Rochelle in order to race the Courses des Phares on Karine Fauconnier's trimaran Sergio Tacchini. Conversely Richard Meacham is to return to his Team New Zealand post and will be replaced by Grant Spanhake.

Finally on Lisa McDonald's team Eleanor Hay has returned to her position as shore manager and is being replaced by top French sailor Christine Briand who sailed on all but the Southern Ocean legs four years ago on EF Education.

Gordon Maguire's predictions for leg 8:

Veteran ocean racer and News Corp watch leader Gordon Macguire believes that they will be first to round Ushant or it will be illbruck depending for how long the wind is freed up for. Gordon has now looked at the weather chart and believes it will be illbruck.

First to Dover will be ASSA ABLOY.

The race will be decided in the last leg from Norway to Swedish and it will be a toss up between ASSA, SEB and News Corp, he predicts.