SAILING. VOR2012, Leg 2, Day 18 – A ship laden with the priceless cargo of five Volvo Open 70s is heading for the northern Emirates in the latest stage of the Volvo Ocean Race’s anti-piracy plan after a nerve-wracking operation to load the 15-tonne boats went perfectly.

Iker Martinez onboard Team Telefonica during leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, from Cape Town, South Africa to Abu Dhabi, UAE. (Photo Credit: Diego Fructuoso/Team Telefonica/Volvo Ocean Race)

Sailors, shore crews and race organisers worked round the clock and completed the risky task when Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam, the fifth and final boat to arrive at the undisclosed safe haven in the Indian Ocean, was the last to be inched into a cradle on board the ship.

For many of the crews and shore teams it was the end of two full days without sleep with work starting the moment Team Telefónica won the first stage of Leg 2 from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi by edging CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand in a thrilling run to the finish line on Monday.

PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG took third place ahead of Groupama sailing team and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing at the safe haven port finish, which is being kept secret because of the threat of piracy.

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet, minus Team Sanya who are repairing their yacht in Madagascar after sustaining rig damage in the leg from Cape Town, was then lifted 40 foot in the air, one by one with a crane in a pain-staking operation that took almost eight hours.

Telefónica skipper Iker Martínez had highlighted the risks involved after completing victory in the leg’s first stage. “The boats are built to be in the water, not in the air,’’ he said. “Operations to load and unload a boat are tricky, particularly with these super-fragile boats and it does scare me a bit. However, the guys in the team are really good at this and we have absolute confidence in them."

At the completion of the loading, race director Jack Lloyd compared notes with the shore team leaders and said: “That was one long day.”

Lloyd paid tribute to the stevedores and loading master who oversaw the operation. “They were magnificent, so professional. The smallest slip could have caused huge damage to a boat.”

Teams will face the same exercise again for Leg 3, with the loading and unloading making for a total of 20 manoeuvres and a nervous time for Lloyd. But, he remains adamant that the toughest part of the loading operation was now behind them.

“Taking them off the ship will be much easier and now that we’ve done it five times, so should loading them again for leg two.”

Team Telefónica technical director Horacio Carabelli, whose boat was the first to be loaded, said good planning had been the secret of success.

“It was co-ordinated before with the shipping company, how the boat must be loaded and everything,” he said. “In the end it was quite straightforward.”

The ship will now travel to a location off the Sharjah coast, where it is expected to arrive within a week.

The boats will then be unloaded and the teams will begin the second stage of Leg 2 with a short sprint into Abu Dhabi.

Volvo Ocean Race 2011 - 2012
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December 28, 2011

DELICATE LOADING OPERATION BEGINS AFTER SAFE HAVEN ARRIVALS

SAILING. VOR2012, Leg 2, Day 17 – Attention switched to a delicate operation to load the Volvo Ocean Race yachts onto a ship that will transport them to the United Arab Emirates following Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s arrival at a secret ‘safe haven’ in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday.

Abu Dhabi arrived in fifth place, the final boat that will be shipped following the arrivals of stage winners Team Telefónica followed by CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG and Groupama sailing team.

“I am upset not to have finished with a better result but on the other hand after the disaster of breaking our mast on Leg 1 I feel a strange feeling of relief to have at least completed the first part of the second leg,” Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker said.

As part of a raft of measures introduced by race organisers to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean, Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race has been split into two parts with the location of the safe haven kept secret.

As soon as Telefónica arrived on Monday, work began to prepare her for the risky loading operation, an unprecedented move in the 38-year history of the Volvo Ocean Race.

The five 15-tonne yachts are being craned 40ft into the air onto a ship with their 100ft masts still in place before being transported to the northern United Arab Emirates. Neither the sailors nor the shore crews will be on board the ship during the transit.

Telefónica and CAMPER were first to be loaded in calm seas followed shortly by PUMA’s Mar Mostro.

Groupama 4 and Abu Dhabi’s Azzam should be loaded in the next few hours.

The ship’s loadmaster said: “Things are going exactly to plan so far. And I’m hopeful that all of the boats will be lifted on safely by this evening.”

It is thought the ship will leave for the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, with the arrival due early in January.

The boats will then be unloaded and the leg will restart to Abu Dhabi, the Volvo Ocean Race’s first ever Middle Eastern stopover.

Team Telefónica will enter 2012 at the top of the overall leaderboard after picking up 24 points for winning the dramatic first stage of Leg 2 by an impossibly tight margin shortly before 1800 UTC on Monday.

They move seven points ahead of CAMPER, who they pipped to the line by one minute and 57 seconds after more than 4,000nm of racing.

PUMA Ocean Racing followed just over five hours later with Groupama coming in three hours later still.

“We went into this leg with confidence,” said a disappointed PUMA skipper Ken Read. “It’s a bit of a shame because we had a couple of points in this leg where we did really the right thing and put ourselves in the right position.”

Groupama skipper Franck Cammas added: “It’s frustrating because five days ago we were imagining winning the leg.

“The Doldrums was bad, and then the light spots at the end were bad. We know these conditions are not good for our boat and for our speed but for sure we didn’t manage the start very well.

“Maybe we were too frustrated before and we tried to come back with an option that was just too risky. It was a mistake, I think. We need to be more patient and not fight all the time for first place.”

Team Sanya, the sixth boat in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, were forced to suspend racing and head for Madagascar after suffering rigging damage while in the lead on Day 9.

Their current focus is on getting the boat in the best shape possible for Leg 3 into their home port of Sanya in China.

Volvo Ocean Race 2011 - 2012
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December 27, 2011 - 1400 UTC

CAMPER AND TELEFÓNICA FIGHT IT OUT FOR OVERALL LEAD

SAILING. VOR2012, Leg 2, Day 16 – Team Telefónica and CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand are engaged in a close quarters battle for the lead as they approach the finish of the first stage of Leg 2 from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi.

For almost a day the two teams, who lie in first and second overall, have at times been within shouting distance of each other as they head for a likely photo finish at the safe haven port.

With 24 points on offer for first place and 20 for second, whoever gets there first will top the leaderboard ahead of the leg’s second stage into Abu Dhabi.

After exiting the Doldrums in second place Telefónica inexorably ground down CAMPER’s lead, closing to within two nautical miles on Christmas Day. Since then the contest has got even closer with the pair trading the lead several times today.

“[They have been] about four or five boat lengths, 100 metres away,” said Telefónica watch captain, Neal McDonald earlier today. “We have been like that for the last 20 hours.”

The sailors are exhausted, having had little sleep for days on end, but with the overall race lead riding on the result, there is no chance for rest and both crews have everyone awake to coax the maximum speed out of their boats.

At 1300 UTC today and with the breeze having dropped to 7 knots, CAMPER were maintaining their lead, but only just. As darkness fell this evening CAMPER helmsman Adam Minoprio described the intensity of the racing:

“Right now the atmosphere is incredibly tense,” he said. “Telefónica are less than 100 metres behind us and we have everyone up working the boat as hard as we can. The darkness will just serve to ratchet the tension up even more.

“It’s been this close for hours now, in fact for the last few days we have been sailing within in sight of each other almost all the time.

“Tactically it should be straightforward now as we are heading directly towards the finish, but we still need to be very careful and make sure we match their speed and stay between them and the line.”

Meanwhile, PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG have moved into third after over hauling Franck Cammas' Groupama sailing team.

“We’ve had a good day and a half and managed to position ourselves so that we managed to get back past Groupama,” said PUMA skipper Ken Read “Now we are feeling good and sailing well and have managed to start to build a margin over the French.”

Read said he was disappointed not to be challenging for the lead and cited a difficult Doldrums crossing as the reason why.

“We didn’t get it right at all and Tom [Addis – navigator] and I have talked long and hard about how we can work on our positioning in those situations in the future.

“For sure there were some frayed nerves on board in the Doldrums but that’s why we have this remarkable team who can deal with setbacks and just move on.”

Groupama had themselves previously held a big lead on the fleet before also falling foul of the Doldrums, as skipper Franck Cammas explained:

"It’s frustrating for us because a few days ago our thoughts were about winning the leg,” he said. “But now I think there is no chance of catching PUMA now and we just have to accept the result.

“This is our first Volvo Ocean Race and we are continually learning. We learn by our mistakes and we have learned a lot that way during this section of the leg. I feel we have improved and we will come back stronger in the second part of the leg."

Having struggled to re-engage with the fleet in the Doldrums Ian Walker's Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing lies in fifth, around 110 nautical miles adrift of the leaders.

“It was a tough leg for us once we split from the fleet in the Southern Ocean section,” said Media Crew Member (MCM) Nick Dana. “Each team was sailing very well and it seemed as if we were always just falling off the systems that were carrying the leaders ahead.

“In the end we had one last go at the leaders, making up a massive amount a miles in a matter of 24 hours coming into the Doldrums. But again, the fleet was sailing very consistently and each managed to protect their lead on us.

“Now we are looking forward to part B of the journey, and getting home to Abu Dhabi.”

On CAMPER, MCM Hamish Hooper said he expected the close tussle with Telefónica to go on all the way to the finish line tonight.    

“It will be full on, close quarters, neck and neck, all guns blazing racing all the way down to the wire.

“I think most of the guys will pretty much collapse once we cross the finish line. But that’s OK - they can sleep as long as they want after that, but believe me they will be doing everything possible to make sure they will be sleeping contently having crossed the finish line first.”

Volvo Ocean Race 2011 - 2012
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December 26, 2011 - 1300 UTC