Stop-starts affect racers' rhythm

SAILING VOLVO OCEAN RACE:AND THEY'RE off! Er, not quite. They're finished – again. Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race got under way on Saturday morning, departing the United Arab Emirate port of Abu Dhabi en route for Sanya in China, some 4,500 nautical miles distant.

Within seven hours the boats had halted racing once more for the reverse of the Leg 2 anti-piracy measures and were being prepared for loading onto a container ship with armed guards bound for a secret port in the Indian Ocean.

Delivering his second comeback in 24 hours after a dismasting in Leg 1 followed by second-last place in Leg 2, Ian Walker on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing won the 98-mile sprint to Sharjah after victory in Friday’s In-port race in his sponsors’ home port.

Overall fleet leader Iker Martinez on Telefonica had been leading the pack for the short course but lost his lead approaching the finishing-line. His points advantage has been pared back considerably as the race halts for another week.

The “stop-start” profile of the race so far is a far cry from the traditional long-haul trans-oceanic legs this race earned its reputation for since 1973, when it was known as the Whitbread.

Puma Ocean Racing skipper Ken Read complained bitterly last week the race lacked a sense of rhythm and that his team badly needed this after a poor showing in the last leg – but more especially after being dismasted 2,000 miles from land in Leg 1.

“You prepare mentally and physically for a 21-day leg, a week off, prepare, In-port (racing) 21-day legs, go, go, go for the next nine months,” Read said. “It just seems completely disjointed to me right now, to the team, to the whole race as well; I’m really looking forward to getting this all over with and starting to get into a rhythm again, becoming the Volvo race again.”

Read failed to find form on Friday for the hour-long in-port race but delivered a solid second place into Sharjah on Saturday evening, partly lifting his veil of gloom over the race’s rhythm.

“I have that sense myself but I have that sense because we’ve had three boats with major breakdowns,” Knut Frostad, race chief executive, told The Irish Times. “But the stop-start because of the shipping definitely has that effect, there’s no doubt about that.”

The race organisation has taken considerable flak from purists in recent years after varying the course from its traditional route: down the South Atlantic, past the great capes and back up the Atlantic to Europe, with just a few stop-overs along the way. Frostad, a race veteran and skipper, varied the route to take it to India, Singapore and China in 2008 at the expense of part of the classic Southern Ocean route between South Africa and Australia.

This year, a two-race multi-million euro deal with the Emirate of Abu Dhabi took the race to the Middle East for the first time. But the increasing threat of Somalian pirates venturing further east in the Indian Ocean and risk of kidnap and ransom presented a stark choice last summer – and the anti-piracy measures became a reality, breaking-up the 5,500-mile second leg.

“The story that we’re not racing around the world? I don’t buy it,” says Frostad. “I’m the most passionate follower of this race and I love the traditional way, the traditional racing: the Paris-Dakar is in South America and it’s more popular than ever – and it’s still named Paris-Dakar.”

He also cites the Tour de France including London, which prompted outrage in France, but insists these changes are made for good, workable reasons.

“In sailing, we must be open-minded that if we want to grow the sport, we need to take some steps – and we’re going to have to give something, we need to give some of the Southern Ocean, some of the traditional things.” But he’s clear that shipping the boats for part of the route around the world and not actually sailing them is a step too far. However, the idea of taking a break during the round-the-world race in future to ship the fleet to a port such as Abu Dhabi could be a possibility.

This week, as their boats head to the secret port to rendezvous with the sixth entry, Team Sanya is still at sea completing the first stage of Leg 2 and is expected to arrive by the weekend for a hurried 48-hour turn-around before the full race to China gets under way.

That leg, for the second time only after the last edition, sees the fleet race in relatively unknown waters which Camper skipper Chris Nicholson reckons make it the most dangerous of the entire event.

Tropical storms such as the one that affected half the fleet in 2008, along with shallow, reef-strewn seas, unlit fishing-boats and further piracy threats – though of the slightly less fearsome type around the Straits of Malacca – lie ahead.

Read may yet get his prayers for rhythm answered, but that could mean more of the same disruption in what could become a new standard for crews to contend with.