SAILING VOLVO OCEAN IN-PORT RACES: KEN READ and the crew on American-entry Puma collected their first victory of the Volvo Ocean Race on Galway Bay at the weekend following a light-airs in-port series. But the luck of the Irish deserted the Green Dragon in spite of the supportive home crowd afloat and ashore.
Read’s win brings him closer to second place in the overall standings, just one point shy of skipper Bouwe Bekking of Spain’s Telefonica Blue. Their rivalry afloat spilled over on the prize-giving stage when the Dutchman sprayed the “Il Mostro” skipper with champagne and received a friendly punch in return for his trouble.
But two-race series was of almost as much significance for overall race-leader Torben Grael on Ericsson 4 who ended in fifth place for the day as the light airs are not his team’s optimal weather. While the Brazilian remains firm favourite to win the race outright, his overall lead was whittled to 13 points on Saturday; with more than 30 points still available in the race between now and the St Petersburg prize-giving at the end of June, further haemorrhaging could become a concern.
If the remainder of the race becomes a light-airs sprint, it could well see Bekking and Read pose a more serious threat.
However, for Ireland’s Green Dragon entry, slippage to the back of the fleet and two last places almost seems the inevitable consequence of tired sails that have not been replaced, unlike their fully-funded rivals in the fleet.
Ian Walker’s team did manage to “tick the box” of delivering a pre-race goal of achieving a podium result and their third place into Galway was a result of the downwind conditions, their preferred weather plus good tactics offshore.
That result appeared to be good enough for many of the crowds gathered in Galway and the unusual occurrence for any ocean racing crew of loud applause and cheers from dozens of spectator boats at every mark was some consolation.
Team Delta Lloyd, the winning boat from the last edition of the race, was able to out-pace the Galway boat thanks to a new main and headsail that arrived for the remaining stages.
Owner Ger O’Rourke from Limerick, who bought the boat a year ago and began putting the team together before handing over to the Dutch management earlier this year, was in Galway with the team that is aiming for its own podium results for the remainder of the race.
Race CEO Knut Frostad yesterday announced that the Galway stopover had delivered the largest single daily attendance in the history of the event with more than 120,000 gathered along the shore, afloat and in the race village.
Measures to improve the affordability of entering the race in future were also announced, including further restrictions on sail plans, controls for two-boat testing, increased numbers of under-30 sailors as well as incentives for all-female teams.
Frostad also confirmed 81 cities around the world had formally started the bidding-process to host future stopovers when the next event begins from its new, permanent home of Alicante in 2011.
