Big decisions ahead as competition and weather intensify

One win up and a long way to go for the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing Team. A week after leaving Cape Town, all seven boats in the Volvo Ocean Race are still fairly bunched together, but that could be about to change as we hit a tropical storm in the western Indian Ocean.

After our win in the first leg from Alicante to South Africa, we were doubly pleased to put the horrors of the last race behind us by completing the leg.

Although it doesn’t count for leg points, we also picked up a win in the In-Port racing series that sits well with the second place we won in Spain.

But there’s no resting on our laurels; this race is too long and the other boats are simply too good and getting better by the mile.

We’ve completed 6,500 miles out of 39,000 and are now a week into leg two. From first place to seventh, less than 30 miles separation is nothing in ocean racing terms.

Officially we’ve been ranked first for the last week, though if you watched our start from Cape Town a week ago you’d be forgiven for wondering.

It was a day of huge contrasts, from near calm on the start line to gale-force winds shortly after as we sprinted around the inshore demonstration course off the “Tavern of the Seas”. We just wanted to take it easy as it wasn’t worth risking damage so early. But we got away cleanly even if it wasn’t a great position and while I’m sure we looked pretty average, we worked our way up nicely over the next few days.

Great conditions

After leaving the Cape of Good Hope behind us we fetched into the new breeze and had some lovely sailing in glorious conditions. Even the usually notorious Agulhas current was pretty tame this time, only lasting about five hours that led to some heavy boat-to-boat action with the others.

Back into the Southern Ocean, we had to decide whether and when to sail north, so we lost touch with the fleet as we sailed our own course which goes against the grain when racing in a ‘one-design’ class.

It’s a totally different race now that everyone has the same tools; all the differences between the sails, boats and gear have been taken away. We’re hugely aware that nobody has a boat speed advantage and the smallest thing we do can have a dramatic affect on our standing.

You certainly can feel the pressure when surrounded by the other boats, but we’ve been separated from the main pack which is pressure in itself. We’ve been sailing our own race and not reacting to moves by the others when close, such as monitoring them on automatic identification system (AIS).

We’re most definitely taking this leg as intensely as the last; you can’t afford to let your guard down or the others will punish you. Everyone is raising their game – each decision is taken as seriously as the last one.

We’re now about to have a very big play to make, with the outcome clear by the weekend.

A tropical depression is crossing the ocean to our north as we plough up the coast of Madagascar.

We’ve been alternating from light headwinds to quite rough seas and how we play our route through the storm ahead could have a big bearing on the obstacles coming up afterwards.

Our choices are likely to boil down to ride out the storm for a more direct ride to the finish, but risk damage, or sail around it and emerge unscathed.

We’re coming close to decision time in the next 24 hours.

The biggest challenge that we won’t be facing but which was a huge annoyance in the last race was the mystery destination imposed due to piracy concerns. Basically the entire northwest Indian Ocean was off-limits but the alert level has now receded.

Three years ago, the fleet raced to the Maldives to a secret finishing line, were craned out and then shipped to the gulf port of Sharjah where the boats were unloaded, rerigged and then restarted for an overnight sprint to Abu Dhabi.

On the third leg to China, the process was repeated causing delays and upset to the flow of the race.

We still have an exclusion zone off the coast of Africa to contend with, and it looks likely that the fleet may try and hug this as it is the shortest route north. But it’ll depend on the storm ahead and then Doldrums that we’ll cross once more at the equator.

Monsoon conditions

We’re off Madagascar now and while it’s been bouncy and uncomfortable with more headwinds, the air pressure has been dropping off and the sea state has moderated ahead of the storm.

After that we’re expecting monsoon conditions as we begin to close on the latter stages of this leg next month.

That means we’ll be sailing into our team’s home waters, adoptive for most of us on board but actually homeland for Adil Khalid, our veteran crewmate from the last race who is hugely excited at the prospect of a strong performance into Abu Dhabi.

But we also know from our practice sailing in the Gulf that it’s an extremely tricky area to race.

Within sight of the finishing line, we’ll have to contend with the Strait of Hormuz and between restricted zones, shipping and light winds, the potential for an effective leg restart is massive. At least we’ll be racing the full leg this time, but the finish still feels like a very long way off for now.