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MAPFRE Wins Volvo Ocean Race Leg 3 from Cape Town to Melbourne

The Spanish Volvo Ocean Race team MAPFRE wins Leg 3 from Cape Town to Melbourne, a 6,500 nautical mile dive into the fierce challenges posed by the Southern Ocean.

For the second consecutive leg, MAPFRE needed to come from behind to earn the victory. And for the second time in a row, it was Dongfeng Race Team they passed mid-stage, to snatch the win.

“We had to fight very hard for this victory,” skipper Xabi Fernández said moments after crossing the finish line. “There’s so much of the race to go. But for now it’s looking good and we’re very happy of course.”

The Southern Ocean pushed the teams to the limit. Extreme cold, storm force winds for days on end and towering seas posed massive seamanship challenges, let alone allowing for racing and tactics.

“The strongest point for this team is the group of people we have,” Fernandez acknowledged. “They are so good and give us so much and have been working so hard on this leg. It was so tough, but it’s all gone perfect. Now we have a few days for recovery and we can get ready for the next one.

Leg 3, Cape Town to Melbourne, Start. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race. 10 December, 2017.

Dongfeng Race Team, nursing home a boat with a damaged keel system was able to fend off a late charge by Vestas 11th Hour Racing and Team Brunel to secure second place finish. It’s the second consecutive second place finish for skipper Charles Caudrelier’s team and this one will be bittersweet. The team led for much of this hard Southern Ocean leg and were disappointed to see MAPFRE make a pass to take the win

“This was the toughest leg I’ve ever done,” Caudrelier said. “We had this big fight with MAPFRE for most of the race and then a big problem on board just before the finish. A crazy section of gybing around the ice limits, it was a very, very difficult leg. We’re a bit disappointed after leading 80 per-cent of the time to give first place up to MAPFRE, but there are more legs to come and we will do better.”

Vestas 11th Hour Racing grabbed the final spot on the podium. Just after crossing the finishing line, Mark Towill, team director and co-skipper acknowledged the scale of the achievement “It was a tough leg. We’re happy to be on the podium again. It’s great to be in on Christmas and I know we’re all looking forward to getting ashore. It was a difficult leg, hard on the bodies, but everyone has held up well.”

Leg 3, Cape Town to Melbourne, day 5, Morning watch on board Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag. Photo by Konrad Frost/Volvo Ocean Race. 14 December, 2017.

The Vestas 11th Hour Racing crew finished behind Dongfeng Race Team but ahead of Team Brunel. At one point, with about 36 hours to go, the race tracker showed nothing to choose between Vestas and Dongfeng in terms of distance to finish, but in reality, the tactical situation favoured the Chinese/French boat.

“It was looking pretty close for a little while, but they were always ahead,” Towill said. “They were always comfortable. Brunel sailed well too so credit to them. It was challenging conditions and we’re all happy to be here and in one piece.”

In fourth place was Team Brunel, skipper Bouwe Bekking knows it keeps his team in touch with leaders but wants to be challenging the leaders. hoa

“It’s been a really hard leg. We always expected it would be tough and it lived up to that,” Bekking said. “Plenty of breeze and some awesome sailing as well.

Fifth place in Leg 3 went to Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag who managed to hold off Turn the Tide on Plastic, for the second consecutive leg. Skipper David Witt steered Scallywag across the Melbourne finish line on a sunny boxing day, just in time for lunch. Turn the Tide on Plastic was less than three hours behind, after over two weeks and 6,500 nautical miles of close, hard-fought racing.

“Aussies arriving home after a tough leg. 6th place – shame we couldn’t catch those Scally’s. We tried and it was close. Hopefully next time,” tweeted Turn the Tide on Plastic skipper Dee Caffari as her boat approached the finish line.

Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race represented a return to the roots of the race – a dip down to the Roaring Forties of the Southern Ocean, where storm systems circle Antarctica, unimpeded by land. The result is day after day of cold, strong winds and fearsome seas.

“The Southern Ocean always turns it on,” said Scallywag’s Luke Parkinson as the boat pulled up to the dock. “There are big waves and a lot of wind. This time we probably spent more time further south with day after day of big wind. It certainly can wear you down. When we turned left and headed up to Australia it was pretty special – a very good feeling. We’ve got to rest up now and be ready to leave in a few days.”

It’s an abbreviated stopover in Melbourne, with restrictions on how much work the crews are allowed to do on the boats, ahead of the start of Leg 4, to Hong Kong, on January 2, 2018.

Leg 3, Cape Town to Melbourne, day 06, on board Dongfeng. Rough sailing condition close to the ice gate. Black at the pit. Photo by Martin Keruzore/Volvo Ocean Race. 15 December, 2017.

Volvo Ocean Race Leg 3 – Provisional Results

MAPFRE – 14 days, 04h:07m:21s
Dongfeng Race Team – 14 days, 08h:10m:16s
Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 14 days, 09h:52m:11s
Team Brunel – 14 days, 11h:36m:27s
Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag -15 days, 13h:06m:31s
Turn the Tide on Plastic -15 days, 15h:52m:50s
team AkzoNobel – still racing

Volvo Ocean Race Leaderboard

MAPFRE – 29 points
Dongfeng Race Team – 23 points
Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 23 points
Team Brunel – 14 points
Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag – 11 points
AkzoNobel – 7 points
Turn the Tide on Plastic – 6 points

Additional reporting, images: Volvo Ocean Race, Martin Keruzore, Jeremie Lecaudey, Konrad Frost, Ainhoa Sanchez

Volvo Ocean Race Sailors Prepare For Rough Re-start in Cape Town

Strong winds are forecast for the start of Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race on Sunday afternoon in Cape Town as the famous ‘Cape Doctor’ – a strong southeasterly wind – pays a visit over the weekend.

On Saturday morning the doctor made a house call bringing a steady 40 knots of wind, and at least one gust of over 60 knots was recorded. This is expected to moderate somewhat for Sunday’s race start, but winds are forecast to remain in the 25 to 35 knot range, with some gusts significantly stronger.

“It’s going to be full-on for the start,” says Vestas 11th Hour Racing navigator Simon Fisher. “Very strong southeasterlies and then when we get offshore it will be a decent sea-state we’re banging into as well. It will soften a bit but then we’re quickly into the westerlies and it’s the proper Southern Ocean. It’s going to be an intense leg in general.”

“It could be very windy for the first week and very high speed,” agreed Charles Caudrelier, skipper of Dongfeng Race Team. “I think it’s going to be a fantastic leg.”

Leg 3, from Cape Town to Melbourne, Australia is a nominal 6,500 nautical miles. The routing takes the teams down into the ‘Roaring Forties’, the area south of 40-degrees latitude where storm systems circle Antarctica, unimpeded by any land mass. Towering waves, steady gale and storm force winds, and ice-cold temperatures are a daily feature here.

“We should remember it’s late spring, just the beginning of summer and the winter has just passed in the Southern Hemisphere so the water is still bloody cold,” said race veteran Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Team Brunel.

“I think the most frightening thing is that the depressions are still so strong… the amount of pressure that is in the air is just humongous. And of course, the water temperatures – hopefully with the ice limits we don’t encounter any ice – but if the water is just a few degrees above freezing and you get a southerly breeze, you might be having icicles off the mast some times. We’ve experienced it in the past… When we did this leg in the old days, this was the leg when the most damage appeared. The boats today are stronger than before, but still things can break.”

Deciding when to push for speed and when to throttle back to protect crew and equipment is a delicate balance. The stakes are even higher as this is the first double-point leg. The winner of Leg 3 will collect 15 points (7 x 2 = 14 plus a 1 point win bonus).

“I think we have a lot of experience on our boat and we have to trust that experience in the Southern Ocean,” explained Charlie Enright, skipper of Vestas 11th Hour Racing talking about finding the balance of how hard to push. “It not just about the points, it’s the fact we don’t haul-out in Melbourne, it’s the heavy conditions in the Southern Ocean, because you don’t want to break anything…To finish first, you must first finish.”

For Xabi Fernández, the skipper of MAPFRE, the race leader, the stopover in Cape Town provided a much needed opportunity to recharge.

“After the first long leg (Lisbon to Cape Town), it’s always important to be in the front,” he said. “We’re happy as a team. We had a good stopover. The boat is in great shape and the team is as well, so we’re ready to go.”

The start of Leg 3 is scheduled for 2pm in Cape Town, 12:00 UTC, and will be broadcast live on www.volvooceanrace.com.

Additional reporting and images: Pedro Martinez, Volvo Ocean Race

Dongfeng Win Spectacular Cape Town In-Port Race

Vestas 11th Hour Racing and Dongfeng Race Team traded blows throughout the first half of the Cape Town In-Port Race course on Friday afternoon, before the Chinese-French team grabbed the lead midway through the race and stretched away for their first win in the series.

The victory vaults skipper Charles Caudrelier’s team to second place on the leaderboard for the In-Port Race Series, just behind MAPFRE who retained the overall lead with a fightback second place finish on Friday.

“The team did a fantastic job, very nice boat handling and good speed, so well done to the full team,” Caudrelier said after the race. “Our start was not fantastic, but after that we made a good call to tack a bit earlier and put pressure on Vestas and then we found some good speed. That was a key factor.”

Conditions were spectacular on the waters off Cape Town, with wind near 20 knots, under bright, sunny skies. Boat handling was at a premium in the fresh conditions and on the first two laps of the course, there were several very close crosses as the boats approached the turning gates.

Near the end of the second run, Vestas 11th Hour Racing were sailing on an awkward wind angle to the mark and had difficulty furling their big A3 downwind sail in preparation for the rounding.

It didn’t hurt them immediately but when they next tried to deploy the sail at the final top mark, it wouldn’t fully unfurl, and the team was very slow for most of the final run.

“We started well,” said navigator Simon Fisher. “At the second top mark Dongfeng did a great job, pushing us to the less favoured side, which pushed us back into the fleet, which put pressure on the downwind drop, which meant we didn’t have a great furl, and that hurt us on the last run. It’s just a great example of how things can snowball.”

The mistake cost the team two places, as both MAPFRE and team AkzoNobel raced past on the run to the finish.

The second place finish represented a tremendous comeback for MAPFRE who were forced into a penalty turn just before the start, leaving them them the last to get across the line.

But the Spanish team kept pushing its way up the fleet, finally forcing team AkzoNobel away with an aggressive luff near the final top mark, setting the table for the pass of Vestas 11th Hour Racing on the final run.

Further back, Brunel and Scallywag engaged in a luffing match early on the first run. The Umpires penalised Scallywag for an infraction and following the penalty turn, David Witt’s team were trailing the fleet.

At the finish, a hard-charging Brunel nearly stole a place from Turn the Tide on Plastic. But Dee Caffari’s team, who had a very strong start to the race, held on for fifth place.

Cape Town In-Port Race Results
1. Dongfeng Race Team
2. MAPFRE
3. team AkzoNobel
4. Vestas 11th Hour Racing
5. Turn the Tide on Plastic
6. Team Brunel
7. Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag

Volvo Ocean Race In-Port Race Series Leaderboard
1. MAPFRE – 19 points
2. Dongfeng Race Team – 18 points
3. Team Brunel – 13 points
4. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 12 points
5. Team AkzoNobel – 11 points
6. Scallywag – 6 points
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 5 points

Additional reporting and images: Volvo Ocean Race, Pedro Martinez, Ainhoa Sanchez

Next stop – Cape Town, Dongfeng Leads the Volvo Ocean Race Out of Lisbon

Dongfeng Race Team converted a strong start into an early lead as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet embarked on Leg 2, a 7,000 nautical mile race from Lisbon to Cape Town.

Conditions were perfect for the leg start, with bright blue skies, and a 15-20 knot Northerly breeze that allowed the fleet to reach up and down the Tagus River past the city front of Lisbon.

After exiting the river and heading offshore past the protection of Cascais, the wind is forecast to build to over 30-knots, with a heavy ocean swell near 4-metres. It will be a fast and challenging first night at sea as the teams charge to the southwest.

“It’s going to be fast,” said Dongfeng skipper Charles Caudrelier. “We have been preparing for this, training in strong winds for six months, so I hope we are ready. We have some good drivers in these conditions so I hope we will be fast.”

And indeed, within 15-minutes of clearing the mouth of the river, the fleet was already seeing over 30-knots of wind and Dongfeng Race Team recorded a boatspeed of nearly 33-knots.

Charlie Enright, the skipper of race leader Vestas 11th Hour Racing was in a strong position early, but appeared to be caught out with too much sail up for the final stretch down the river, and fell back to fifth place.

“We’re confident, but not cocky,” Enright said before the start. “We want to take what we’ve learned and apply it to leg 2. It’s going to be a much different leg. It will be a lot more boatspeed oriented and we’re looking forward to that.”

“The real race starts now,” said Xabi Fernández, the skipper of MAPFRE. “Today we will sail in a couple of days in heavy winds. Everyone will be competitive so we’ll need to go as fast as we can.”

Volvo Ocean Race – Lisbon to Cape Town

The Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18 shifts into a new phase with the start of Leg 2, a 7,000 nautical mile, three-week, marathon leg to Cape Town, South Africa.

It’s one of the iconic legs of this offshore classic, as the teams transition from the North Atlantic, through the Doldrums, into the trade winds and may even dip a toe into the Southern Ocean before the finish in Cape Town, which has already been a stopover host 10 times.

The tactical options on the leg have been opened up this year by the removal of a traditional waypoint, the island of Fernando de Noronha, about 170 nautical miles off the coast of Brazil.

While teams often sail as far west as this to pick up the tradewinds earlier, it adds hundreds of miles to the route to Cape Town. Without this island as a mark of the race course, the shorter, but normally slower option of sailing further east, down the coast of Africa, may be in play.

“It’s a very interesting one, maybe more interesting than in the past,” said Charlie Enright, the skipper of Leg 1 winner, Vestas 11th Hour Racing. “You usually have to go nearly all the way to Brazil… ‘West is best’ as they say…”

But it’s not clear that will be the case this time.

“I think (taking out the waypoint) changes things a lot,” said Sun Hun Kai/Scallywag skipper David Witt. “I think this will be an interesting leg and I think you might see the biggest split you’ve seen for a long time in the Volvo Ocean Race. But we’ll see what happens.”

“For sure you can go more east,” agreed Dongfeng Race Team skipper Charles Caudrelier. “The difference is huge, but it’s a danger (tactically). It’s always a balance and it’s always difficult to know where to go. It will be a nightmare for the navigators.”

“Let’s see. Hopefully the others will go the short way and we’ll keep going west,” said Xabi Fernández. “It’s hard to know. It will be busy for (navigator) Juan Vila. But we trust his instincts and his work and hopefully we have a good crossing of the equator.”

“It’s a leg of 21 or 22 days with technical decisions to make every day,” said Simeon Tienpont, the skipper of team AkzoNobel, who has added the experience of Chris Nicholson, Jules Salter and Peter Van Niekerk to his crew for this leg.

In contrast, for many of the rookie sailors spread across the teams, Leg 2 will be the longest they have been at sea, and a new experience of true offshore sailing.

“We have crew on board who have never been at sea for longer than six or seven days at a time,” said Turn the Tide on Plastic skipper Dee Caffari, who is shepherding some rookie offshore sailors through their first big ocean experiences on this leg. “So they will be on a steep learning curve. This is the first one where you get a little taste of everything.”

Bouwe Bekking, sailing his eighth Volvo Ocean Race as skipper of Team Brunel, will take World Sailor of the Year and reigning America’s Cup winning skipper Pete Burling on his longest offshore sojourn, including a first Doldrums crossing that traditionally calls for a visit from King Neptune.

“We’re racing, but this is part of the tradition of the race, and that’s important,” Bekking said. “Someone like Peter Burling, there will be some nice footage of him, probably with a mohawk haircut or something like that… We have some extra items on board so that Neptune welcomes these guys properly.”

But first there is the start, including an inshore leg up the Tagus River to the Lisbon city front, before the teams break to the Southwest for a drag race down to the warmer latitudes. The forecast is for 15 to 18 knot Northerlies on Sunday afternoon – it should be a fast start.

Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race – Lisbon to Cape Town
Start time: 14:00 UTC.
Watch it live www.volvooceanrace.com

Additional reporting/images: Volvo Ocean Race

Vestas 11th Hour Racing Win First Leg of Volvo Ocean Race

There were some tense moments on the final approach to Lisbon, but Vestas 11th Hour Racing is across the line for a fantastic Leg 1 win with MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team completing the podium in Portugal for the 1,650 nautical mile first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18.

The win was a hard fought one for American skipper Charlie Enright and his team, and it wasn’t easy. The wind shut down on the final approach, and an early morning lead of 34-nautical miles over second-placed MAPFRE was soon whittled down to 10-miles.

The finish line was in sight, but the current in the river was pushing the boat back out to sea in some of the lulls. But the crew held their nerve, tacking first up and then down, zigzagging towards the line, into agonisingly light headwinds, and finally securing victory.

“We have a long way to go certainly, but this was a good way to start,” said skipper Charlie Enright. “SiFi (navigator Simon Fisher) did a great job. He didn’t really make any missteps… But every (results) sked is nerve-wracking, especially when you’re stuck in a river going backwards!”“But we pride ourselves on not getting too high or too low and I think we executed that on this leg… It’s about having confidence in ourselves and committing to the process and now we’re starting to see the results of that.”The winners weren’t the only team to have an excruciating finish experience. When MAPFRE was within 1.5 miles of the line, they too ran out of wind and had to watch Dongfeng Race Team rush into the river behind them. With only a small lead as a buffer, the tension for Spanish fans was rising fast.

But as Vestas did before them, the MAPFRE crew found a little zephyr of wind to finish 15-minutes ahead of the Chinese team.

“Very pleased with the result. It’s a solid start, exactly what we wanted. We’re very happy,” said Xabi Fernández, the skipper of MAPFRE immediately after finishing. “We have to say Vestas did very well early on and we didn’t see them again… But then we had a strong 12-hours after Gibraltar and we stepped it up there.”

The experience and desire of the MAPFRE crew was on full display in the 30+ knot winds they had pushing out of the Mediterranean on the second night. Fernández and his team put in more manoeuvres than the rest of fleet to stay in a narrow band of strong winds and emerged from the experience in the second place slot they would never relinquish.

Dongfeng Racing Team skipper Charles Caudrelier made an excellent recovery on Leg 1, needing to scratch and claw for every inch, after falling to the back of the fleet on the approach to Gibraltar. And fight they did, slowly reeling in the fleet and finally recovering to pass team AkzoNobel with only 220 miles to go, to complete the podium.

“The first 24 hours were bad,” Caudrelier said. “After that we sailed very well with good speed and good decisions and finally we managed to pass akzoNobel to finish in third so it was a good effort by the team.”

The drama didn’t end with the podium places decided. Just over an hour later, team AzkoNobel were forced to fend off a late charge from Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag, who attempted to make the pass by sailing slightly closer to the coast. It nearly worked too. But in the end, Simeon Tienpont and his team grabbed fourth, with SHK/Scallywag settling for fifth.

“I’m unbelievably proud of the guys and girls on board,” Tienpont said. “I couldn’t say it enough during the leg to them… We went out with a full ‘streetfight’ mentality and my compliments to all the sailors. The team morale was high and we sailed our socks off!”

“I’ve never finished like that before,” Scallywag skipper David Witt said “We tried to get akzoNobel by coming down the shore. It was pretty close… then we got stuck on the bottom… we had to swim an anchor out to get us off the rocks so we could drift across the finish line!

“(But) we’re really happy. We were right in there for most of it… We’re on the up. We’re getting better. Look out in a couple of legs time.”

The race for the final two positions was as intense as any that came before. Although it was a battle for sixth and seventh place, both Team Brunel and Turn the Tide on Plastic pushed as hard as possible to earn the extra point.

As with the boats in front, it was a slow-motion dance to the finish line, with Brunel gliding across in the dark, guided by America’s Cup star Peter Burling, to secure sixth place

“We’re a bit frustrated,” skipper Bouwe Bekking said. “We weren’t very fast. We never reached out target speeds… but we’ve been fighting hard and it was actually an enjoyable leg… The boys and the girls sailed the boat nicely right to the end.”

That left seventh place for Dee Caffari’s Turn the Tide on Plastic.

“I’m gutted, we came last,” Caffari laughed at the dock after the finish. “We just had the greatest two-boat testing with Team Brunel for 200 miles, so it was fantastic.”

Volvo Ocean Race Leg 1 – Results – Saturday 28 October (Day 7)
1. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 14:08.45 UTC
2. MAPFRE – 16:42.30 UTC
3. Dongfeng Race Team – 16:57:48 UTC
4. team AkzoNobel -18:11:56 UTC
5. Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag – 18:57:44 UTC
6. Team Brunel – 20:29:00 UTC
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 20:36:52 UTC

Additional reporting and images: Volvo Ocean Race

Talking, Volvo Ocean Race Skippers

The Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18 starts on Sunday, when seven of the best sailing teams in the world cross the start line in Alicante, Spain to commence the 45,000 nautical mile race. The course traverses some of the most challenging waters in the world, including long miles in the extremes of the Southern Ocean.

Ahead of the start the seven skippers faced the international media at the opening press conference. Here’s what they said, in their own words:

Charles Caudrelier, skipper, Dongfeng Race Team, comparing his preparation for this race, to last time: “Last time, when we started the project, we were in China meeting Chinese sailors who had never spent a night offshore, and teaching them how to sail. This time we started in Lisbon, with a team I already know. Since the beginning we are 100-percent focused on the performance. That makes a big change.”

What’s the difference between doing the race as crew and skipper? “The salary (laughing). There’s also the responsibility, of course. When I did the Volvo Ocean Race with Groupama, when I arrived at every stopover my mind was able to switch off. This time, throughout 9 months you never stop. The big pressure never stops. But I have a strong team around me so I’m a lucky skipper I think.”

Dee Caffari, skipper, Turn the Tide on Plastic, comparing sailing single-handed to fully-crewed: “In terms of sailing around the world solo or with a team, it makes a big difference when you have people to share it with and you have more pairs of hands when things happen. The intensity is the thing that gave me the buzz in a team environment, and knowing that you’re pushing 100-percent all the time. Your peers around you punish any mistake you make. It’s that intensity that attracts me.”

“Everyone talks about Turn the Tide on Plastic as inexperienced. A lot of my sailors are first timers but they are very skilled sailors and they can make a boat go fast. We just need to make sure we don’t make any mistakes, and that we sail to the right place.”

“To create an opportunity for young sailors to sail in the Volvo Ocean Race and see them grow and blossom is a great privilege – as well as getting to spread a great sustainability message.”

David Witt, skipper, Team Scallywag, on his motivation for doing the race and his teammates: “It’s the best team sport in the world, I think. I got a good commercial offer – and I couldn’t find a better way to lose weight!!”

“As has been recorded, I’m a lunatic but I think we’re all lunatics together. The young kid (Ben Piggott) started sailing dinghies with me three years ago and ended up here. He’s still dreaming.”

“Right now, I’m finding it harder to stay on shore and stay out of trouble. As long as you have good people around you, it’s fine, and it’s safer on the boat then any other race I’ve been in.”

Alicante stopover. Skippers Press Conference. Photo by Pedro Martinez/Volvo Ocean Race. 20 October, 2017.

Brad Jackson, skipper, team AkzoNobel, on taking over as skipper in the week before the start: “Team-wise, we’re just focusing on the race. Basically, we have the same team as we had before except (without) Simeon. It’s thanks to him that we have the team we have. Not too much has changed in terms of how we’re going to work on board or the crew morale. The last few days we’ve been able to focus on what we’re going to do.”

“We were lucky that Rome Kirby was available and qualified and ready to go. He’s another Under-30 so that brings us up to 5 Under-30s in the team. It’s a young team but Rome has done the race before with me on PUMA and he has a lot of experience for a young guy. He’s a young, fast guy.”

“I’m in this role because it’s necessary, for sure. It hasn’t been a dream of mine to be a skipper. It’s not something I’ve felt the need to do, but the situation has arisen and I’m happy to take it on. I wouldn’t t do it if I didn’t think I had the full support of my team. I hope I enjoy it, I hope it goes well, but it’s not something I’ve been pushing for, or jumping around, saying, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’”

Xabi Fernández, skipper Mapfre, on being tabbed the favourite based on pre-race results: “For us it’s not about being the favourites. That’s not something we talk about, but we do realise that people think that way. It just makes me think we are ready. We have to sail as fast as we can. I think we are ready but I know these guys around us, on the other teams, are going to be ready as well.”

“Hopefully, we can win. I don’t know. We’ve been close before and it didn’t happen. We know how difficult and long it is to win the race.”

Bouwe Bekking, skipper, Team Brunel, on why he keeps coming back and how he recruited his team: “It’s the best thing you can do… Everyone sitting here is a competitor and a sportsman. We all want to win. We have a very good chance of winning this competition.

“We were late at the table but that actually gave us an opportunity. The America’s Cup had just finished. I was racing on the J class and bumped into Carlo Huisman, who had been sailing on Team New Zealand. Through him I got in contact with Pete Burling and the next thing I knew we had the golden boy on the team. He’s won the Olympics, won the America’s Cup, and we also have Kyle Langford, who won the Cup twice.

“The America’s Cup sailors approach the race differently from us, the old school guys. They have a great intensity, and they look hard at everything to do with performance.”

Charlie Enright, skipper, Vestas 11th Hour Racing, comparing his youthful team in the last race, to the experienced crew he has now: “We’re still a young and fresh team. The last time, youth was our thing. Having been around the planet now we’ve logged a lot of miles and we’ve added some crew with a lot of experience. We showed a lot of improvement in the last race from the start in Alicante to the finish in Gothenburg and we want to maintain that trajectory. We won the last leg of the last race and we want to do the same here.”

Leg Zero,SHK Onboard,. Video by Konrad Frost/Volvo Ocean Race. 21July,2017..Onboard sailing action

Speaking about the rule change for 2017-18 incentivising the inclusion of female sailors:

Bouwe Bekking: “It’s great for sailing in general. It would have been very nice to choose our own team but as soon as the rules came out, I said we have to have 2 girls on board. We’ve got the best two girls we can. Abby Ehler is our boat captain and Annie Lush running the sail department. They’re great sailors with serious roles.”

Xabi Fernández: “I guess like Bouwe, new rules are always scary but we trialled some people. We have Sophie Ciszek, who sailed on Team SCA. She knows the boat, is very strong, does the bow and is very complete. And we trialled Támara very hard. She’s very talented and comes from the Olympics, having won gold in London. It was harder for her but I’m very pleased that she improved a lot and was able to win her place.”

Charlie Enright: “I was excited to see the rule change. I think the Volvo Ocean Race was right to incentivise rather than mandate the change. We did two trans-atlantics immediately after getting the boat and it was quickly apparent that it was going to be a competitive advantage.”

David Witt: “We’ve always had girls on our team for the past 15 years so I think we have an advantage here. Steve (Hayles) and I did some math. We think the boats are slow and underpowered at times and we think the lighter you are the better. Overall, we think we’ll have an advantage being lighter. We’ve decided to go with eight sailors on board so I can give Steve more support downstairs. Sailing the boat (with 7) isn’t hard but it is tough performing more than one role (and supporting the navigator). Annemieke Bes is another lunatic.”

Dee Caffari: “I would hazard a guess that those who were reluctant to sail under the new rule can now say it’s not that bad.”

The Volvo Ocean Race starts at 14:00 local time (12:00 UTC) on Sunday, 22 October and it will be live-streamed on www.volvooceanrace.com and www.facebook.com/volvooceanrace.

Leg One is a 1,450 nautical mile sprint to Lisbon, taking the fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar, past the island of Porto Santo, and then to the finishing line off Lisbon.

Additional reporting: Volvo Ocean Race