VolvoOceanRace Leg 5 Start on Thursday.

The VOR continues with Leg 5 after an intensive HongKong Sailing weekend. The next Leg is none counting for the Overall score but is sailed, I think, to honor China .

It is a short Leg, up the Pearl river, so it will be a complete different style of sailing for these VO65 Boats. Hopefully the traffic on the river will be friendly and overcoming for the sailing boats, that might have some difficulties in maneuvering in lower wind strengths; as we do not want to see another collision. 

The Start for Leg 5 is Thursday 1 February but so far there is not mentioned any starting time, it might be 500 UTC, same as for the Leg 6 start ?

In Guangzhou, there will be an officially counting In-Port race held on 3 February at 700UTC (15:00 local)

Hong Kong brought an intense Sailing weekend for the VOR.

The VolvoOceanRace fleet had an buzy and interesting weekend in Hong Kong, sailing Saturday the In-Port Race followed on Sunday by a Round the Island race. The classification of both events were combined into a final HK In-Port scoring.

The In-Port race offered fair winds and an interesting race. Dongfeng typically blocked Mapfre at the start to get a benefit that resulted in them beating Mapfre but was not enough for the Victory as AkzoNobel sailed a sublime race and took the winners honors. There were many close moments around the marks and many protest request, but none were awarded.  
In-Port Race order:

1. AkzoNobel
2. Dongfeng Race Team
3. Brunel
4. Mapfre
5. SunHungKai
6. CleanSeas 

Mapfre creeping away in wind calm on the Round the Island race

The Round the Island race has fair winds at the start, where 3 Boats had to restart because early starts, Brunel recovered fastest, CleanSeas made up a good deal in the next half hour of wind calm, while SunHungKai passed the start line as last Boat.
Mapfre had a tiny lead and took meter by meter till they as first boat fetched the better winds that brought in no time a 2 km advantage. This was big enough to take it to the Victory. Dongfeng was the 2nd boat to pick up the better breeze. 
Brunel in the back and SunHungKai just ahead , took a better route on the East side of the Island and passes both AkzoNobel and CleanSeas to take 4th and 3rd repectively. AkzoNobel got the 5th place and Clean Seas finished just within the limit for duration of the race.
Vestas did not participate as their boat is under repair after the collision with a fishing boat on the approach to Hong Kong Finihs in leg 4. 

Results for the Hong Kong weekend sailing and overall scorecard In-Port races

Scorecard HongKong In-Port race

Vestas Incident in VolvoOceanRace

Got to see a first photo of the damage on Vestas, a sailing Boat participating in the VolvoOceanRace, and involved in a mid-sea collision with a fishing boat about 30 Nm before the Hong Kong Finish.
The collision, killed one fishingman and I believe sank the fishing boat. The other 9 crew members were rescued.
Investigation is still on-going

Damage to Vestas hull

Vestas crew did not have any casualties nor injuries but the Boat is heavily damaged. 
The Hong Kong sailing activities and the non-scoring leg to Guangzhou will not be sailed by Vestas that is reparing the boat to make it healty to start Leg 6 to Auckland .

VolvoOceanRace activities in Hong Kong this weekend

Leg 4 has brought the VolvoOceanRace (VOR) Boats to Hong Kong, with Hun Sung Kai/Scallywag as winner as the HK local representative; a tremendous boost for sailing in Hong Kong.

Unfortunately Vestas was involved on a mid-sea collision that caused the death of a fisherman on the other vessel. Vestas crew is unharmed and only has damage to their boat. Therefore Vestas will not participate in the Hong Kong sailing activities nor the Leg 5 to Guangzhou; which lucky for Vestas is a non-scoring Leg. 

Hong Kong In-Port parcours

  The In-Port Race in Hong Kong will be sailed on Saturday 27 January , starting at 06:00 UTC, (14:00 local time).
Normally there is a live coverage which can be view via the VOR website
This In-Port in HK is scoring but together with the Around the Island race.

On Sudnday 28  January , starting 03:30UTC  (11:30 local time) there will be an "Around the Island" race. The Parcours is given below

Hong Kong Around the Island

 I am not sure that this race will be live on the web. 

The start of Leg 5 Hong Kong to Guangzhou is on 1 February, but the starting time is still not shown.

Leg 4 VolvoOceanRace with a different start in Melbourne

Leg 4 started different than the other Legs in the VolvoOceanRace. Normally there is a small parcours in front of the harbour to allow the public to view the first miles of battling between the boats, before they sail into the large Open Waters. 
Melbourne, did not offer that, the marks guided the Boats our of Port Philippe Bay, into the Open Waters of Brass Strait on their way to Hong Kong. 

Start Leg 4

It was Mapfre that made a good start again, and took the lead soon after. Dongfeng had to redo the start as they were apparently on the wrong side of the line at the starting shot. 

It was however Vestas that won the mini race in the bay and left as leader into the rough waters of the Brass Strait on their way to HongKong.
Mapfre was 2nd followed by Brunel and Dongfeng.

A video of the Start can be seen on Youtube. ; link also available in my blog under TAB Videos

The performances of the Boats can be followed via daily reviews and a tracker on the VOR website. A link to the daily reviews is given above in the TAB Daily Review as well.
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