Another bullet for Dongfeng

Charles Caudrelier's crew does her sponsor (and Volvo) proud in the Sanya In Port Race

Following her leg 3 victory into Sanya, China, Dongfeng Race Team earned another home team victory in an exciting three-lap, seven-mile Team Vestas Wind In-Port Race. This means there have been four different in-port race winners and three different leg winners for the first time in Volvo Ocean Race history.

At the start, which took place at 1400 local time, the wind filled in with 10+ knots and the fleet got away cleanly under main and A3, with the exception of MAPFRE which was OCS and had to re-start.

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The lead changed hands through the first four legs, as, successively, Team Alvimedica, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Dongfeng Race Team moved ahead. The Turkish-American crew held a slim lead through the bottom gate, choosing to go left back towards the Sanya shore. Second-placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing had recovered from a poor start and was leading Dongfeng Race Team out to the right-hand side out to sea in stronger breeze than Team Alvimedica. The Abu Dhabi boat briefly took the lead until the fleet converged at the top marks, with Alvimedica still holding the smallest of leads, although this time over Team Brunel who had moved up to second.

Dongfeng had executed a tricky move around the other rounding mark to find some good breeze by themselves out on the shore side of the course. Meanwhile Team Alvimedica’s crew was struggling to get their A3 gennaker secured on the lock at the top of the mast, forcing them to keep the power out of the sail for some agonising moments.

“That mast-head lock problem put us closer to Dongfeng than we would have liked, after having a good lead,” explained Enright later. “With the benefit of hindsight, maybe we should have furled a bit earlier and defended second place rather than continuing to battle for the lead. But not always easy to see those things in the heat of the moment.”

When the Chinese gybed back, they were threatening Team Alvimedica for the lead, and those two boats went around the bottom mark side by side. Trouble was, Team Alvimedica had done a late furl on their A3 gennaker and was now paying the price when the sail started to unfurl as the crew lowered it to the deck.

Up the next leg, four boats were virtually neck and neck for the lead, although it was the Chinese that moved in front, with Team Alvimedica now in second. The hardest work was yet to come, however, as Enright’s crew set about getting that messy A3 furl back to the top of the mast. By the time they had completed the hoist and managed to get a horrible twist out of the sail, Abu Dhabi had seized the opportunity to move into second.

The front two spots now looked hard to catch, so Enright’s primary concern at this stage was to hold off a charge by the Dutch boat, Team Brunel. Once again Team Alvimedica went around the bottom mark neck and neck with its rival, but an instant tack by the Dutch forced them to an almost complete halt. This gave Enright the opportunity to cover any more Dutch attacks, and Team Alvimedica sailed across the finish line in third place.

Dongfeng sailed to victory keeping Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing at bay to win prompting huge cheers from the crowd on the Sanya docks.

Walker and the Abu Dhabi crew were satisfied with another solid podium finish in second place taking four points clear at the top of the In-Port Race Series table.

For MAPFRE, it was another disappointing day as they never recovered from their poor start. Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) sailed well after winning the previous in-port race in Abu Dhabi in early January, but failed to threaten the leaders here.

Caudrelier commented: “Today was really a team game, everyone has been awesome. We had a problem at one point, we could have lost a lot and I’m so proud of the guys, they reacted so well and quickly, stayed calm. It’s a big improvement – I’m very happy because we have worked a lot to be better in the in-port races. I would like to thank Thierry Peponnet our coach - if we’re here today it’s because of him.

“I am happy we won but tomorrow we have a new leg and we have to stay focused on that. That’s the problem with this race, you can be happy but in an hour the stress will come back. Now I have a briefing for the next leg so my goal is to stay focused on that.”

Dongfeng Race Team, Team Director Bruno Dubois commented: “Winning the leg was more than we would have ever imagined and winning the in-port race really is the icing on the cake. I truly believe we can say we have done China proud.

"It’s not always easy to manage expectations – sometimes we struggle to manage our own, on days like this it’s so easy to run away with ourselves but the truth is there is such a long way to go and we only have to look at what happened last race to bring ourselves back down to earth. Leg 4 is going to be tough and the first few days are going to be rough and anything can happen. It would be foolish to assume anything at this point of the race."

Although the in-port races do not contribute to the overall scoring of the race, they have their own championship.

Sanya Team Vestas Wind In-Port Race finish times and points
1. Dongfeng Race Team 14:54:29 -1pt
2. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 14:55:07 -2pts
3. Team Alvimedica 14:56:20 -3pts
4. Team Brunel 14:56:36 -4pts
5. Team SCA 14:57:30 -5pts
6. MAPFRE 15:00:03 -6pts
7. Team Vestas Wind -DNS

Overall In-Port leaderboard
1. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 8
2. Team Brunel 12
3. Dongfeng Race Team 14
4. Team Alvimedica 15
5. Team SCA 15
6. MAPFRE 22
7 Team Vestas Wind 28