Brunel glorious Winner of VolvoOceanRace Leg 10

Brunel is the glorious Winner in the penultimate Leg in the VolvoOceanRace 2017-2018, with a small margin over Mapfre.

Brunel Winner of Leg 10

Leg 10 started in Cardiff and sailed around Ireland and the UK, to finish in Gothenburg , Sweden. 
This Leg had it all, no winds, stormy winds, no waves , large wave, no currents, anti-currents and helping currents. 
Many Boats in one time at this Leg were in the lead, or close to the lead  and many position changes occured. 

Brunel did not had such a good start and half way, they were about 6th in the 7 boat VOR fleet. Thereafter , however, it seems that Brunel woke up and got chasing the Boats in front of them and one after the other was passed. Till yesterday, in a straight line battle with Mapfre , Brunel passed the red boat with spendid sailing and kept the lead till the Finish.

Now the last Leg 11, Gothenburg to The Hague, will bring the decision on podium places. The 3 top boats, Brunel, Mapfre and Dongfeng all have 65 points; including the bonus point for Dongfeng for the shortest sailing time overall, which is as good as sure.
So the ranking in the end of Leg 11, will directly translate in the ranking in the Overall VOR 2017-2018 . 

Leg 11 will start on 21 June, but first there will be the Gothenburg In-Port races on 17th June. 

Dongfeng winner in Cardiff In-Port Race

The Cardiff In-Port race was sailed in proper winds of about 10 kts. AkzoNobel and Dongfeng made both a good start, with Brunel in between them was pushed back by the foul winds. 
I was lucky to see Mapfre and Dongfeng sailing their own race, rather than match-racing each other and forgetting that other Boats are also participating. 

AkzoNobel sailed in the lead for 2 out of 3 rounds, but lost in the penultimate leg, out to Dongfeng but also Mapfre benefited from it so passed AkzoNobel into 2nd place. Brunel in the last leg, sailed a better strategy and could also pass AkzoNobel.

Dongfeng already leader in front of Mapfre

Vestas made a Start too sharp to be correct and had to make a penalty restart. She never recovered really , though could pass TurntheTideonPlastic and SunHungKai into a 5 th place.

Next event is the Start of Leg 10 Cardiff to Gothenburg on Sunday 10 June at 1500 UTC.

Cardiff In-Port Race as appetizer for the VolvoOceanRace last 2 Legs.

Enjoying an easy weekend in Cardiff with a cool Beer, that is good. Just one week to go till the Cardiff In-Port Race sets off the last 2 Legs in the VolvoOceanRace 2017-2018.

The parcours is shown below and the length is about 1 hour of sailing. 

Cardiff In=Port Race parcours

The Cardiff In-Port Race starts Friday 8th June at 1300 UTC, 1400 Local.

As normal , the race will be live broadcasted via the VolvoOceanRace website and Twitter. 



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Brunel wins a nail biting Leg 9 in Cardiff VolvoOceanRace

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Brunel wins the TransAtlantic, Leg 9 in the VolvoOceanRace from Newport to Cardiff, UK. 

Brunel winners of Leg 9

And what a Leg it was. 
Brunel made a fantastic start by winning the starters parcours in Newport and leading the fleet into the Atlantic in between the different exclusion zones.
Normally the fastest route is going North as much as possible, as the winds are stronger there and the distance is the smallest. But when the crucial point came to turn North, Brunel did not, contrary to Maphfre and Dongfeng.
Brunel stayed in the storm that had good speed pushing them to the East, and later that breeze was even better than expected. Once that was over and the fleet converged, Brunel with AkzoNobel and Vestas cut in front of the northern boats and with the next westerly depression could only extend their lead. 
The High pressure ridge, that stalled all Boats was rather fair and released the Boats in order of arriving. The strong tide towards Cardiff was friendly as well, as it truned inwards the moment the leaders approached. 

AkzoNobel, was constantly close to Brunel and took sometimes the lead. In the end however Brunel won with about 4 minutes. AkzoNobel however sailed the longest distance in the Atlantic in a 24 hrs period, 602.5 Nm; breaking the old record of Torben Grael on , Ericsson 4 at 596.6 Nm. 

Fast Sailing

Now the ranking at the top of the Overall scoreboard has become very tight, promissing a hard fought victory in the last 2 legs.

Next event will be the Cardiff In-Port Race on  Friday 8 June at 1300 UTC. 
Next Leg 10 to start Sunday 10 June 1500 UTC from Cardiff to Gothenburg. 

Brunel makes a perfect Start on Leg 9 towards Cardiff, back to Europe.

Repeating their fantastic performance in the Newport In-Port Race, Brunel sailed to the leaders position to leave Newport setting sail into the Open Water to the Finish of VolvoOceanRace Leg 9 in Cardiff, UK.
  

Brunel leading the VOR fleet out of Newport

 It is an important Leg, as it has double points , so you can make big gains (or losses) depending on your performance in this Leg. Brunel, has to score good points over their revals, in order to still have any change on the Overall Victory. With their improving results in the last events, they for sure are sharp to get at Winner in Cardiff. 


This leg, will have first some influence of the Cold Stream along the East coast of the States but then will get the warmer Golf Stream that will help them sailing East. With the east wards moving Depressions these will be the main strategic elements to beat the competition. 





Fair winds. 

VolvoOceanRace continues with the Newport In-Port Race.

The rest is over, the VolvoOceanRace continues with an In-Port race in the waters of Newport. 
The Start will be on Saturday 19 May at 1800 UTC (      local).

The parcours is shown below  and it is aimed at a sailing time of about 1 Hour. 

 
 Lets hope that there is some proper  winds, such that sailing if possible and not like the Finish of Leg 8 where boats were floating on a lucky puff of wind. Add to this the current in the river and a low wind event will have the sailing strategies overruled by the luck to dice.

Normally this event can be watched live on the internet via the VOR website.


The next event will be the Start of Leg 9 Newport to Cardiff on Sunday 20 May at 1800 UTC.

Russian Roulette at terrifying Leg 8 Newport Finish.

Leg 8 in the VolvoOceanRace, Itajai to Newport, was a very interesting, fast and challenging Leg , till about 2 Nm before the Finish. A narrow approach inside a river, failing winds and a counter current, made it a lottery who would win. That had nothing to do with the skills of skippers and navigators, that had brought the best boats ahead at the coast of Newport.

A real drama for VOR to make sailing an interesting event, as this was the worst advert it could make for itself. I propose to locate future finishes in open waters just outside the river mouth.

That said, Congrats to Mapfre, who accepted the gift of this lottery to extend their points for the Overall Win. 

The scorecard after the Finish in Newport looks like this:

The next event, and I hope it is a lot better and allows the skills of skippers and navigators have some impact on the results, is the Newport In-Port race on Saturday 19 May at 18:00 UTC (14:00 Local time).