Sailboat racing is all about choices. Go offshore or hug the coast? Change the jib now or wait till the turning mark? Do we spend the budget on new sails or a coach? Every choice is a risk. Get it right and you gain; get it wrong and you lose. But this is sailing, and there is an existential element to the sport that exists in few others; sometimes the choices are more serious, and coming last in the race is the least of your problems. Just such a decision came up on the third leg of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race from Cape Town, South Africa, to Melbourne, Australia.

It was December 12, 2017, and the whole fleet was sailing east, tracking the movement of a low-pressure system, when another, more ominous feature appeared in the forecast. The charts showed a new storm growing with spectacular speed and violence. By the 13th, it would be a fully formed monster with winds up to 65 knots at its core, approaching the fleet from the northwest. If they held to the optimal course, it would chase them down and run them over. Or they could jibe and take a slower, more northerly route that would avoid the worst of the weather.

There were seven boats in the fleet. Two took the northern route: Turn the Tide on Plastic skippered by Dee Caffari, and Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag led by David Witt. In both cases, the boats had relatively in­­experienced crews (compared to the rest of the fleet) and not much training together as a group before the start of the race. In both cases, the decision to go north felt like the correct one. It was unlikely they would do better than sixth or seventh even if they had chosen to stay south. They could get that result by going north with much less risk of damage, and they might pick up a place if any of the boats that stayed south suffered damage in the storm.

The opposite was true for the top three boats on the overall scoreboard: Dongfeng Race Team, MAPFRE and Vestas 11th Hour Racing. They had previously taken all three podium places in the first two legs, and all three remained south. Once the storm passed, MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team led the fleet by over 50 miles. Vestas 11th Hour Racing was solidly in third place with a lead of more than 100 miles from the next boat. In all three cases, it looked like the right decision to stay south, and going north would have put them out of contention for the overall lead. They also had good reason to believe they could manage the conditions in the south and avoid a bad outcome.

This left two boats: Team Brunel and Team AkzoNobel. Neither crew lacked experience. Skippering Team Brunel was Bouwe Bekking, who was on his eighth attempt at winning the race. And while Team AkzoNobel’s skipper was a first-timer in the role, Simeon Tienpont had won a couple of America’s Cups and been around the world twice before. Tienpont’s crew also included Jules Salter, on his fourth race around the planet, already counting a second place and a win. Chris Nicholson, a six-time world champion, two-time Olympian for Australia, and a ­second-place finisher as skipper among his six previous races, was also on board.

The crews of Team AkzoNobel and Team Brunel nevertheless faced a more difficult choice than the others. On the one hand, they had every right to regard themselves as peers of those on Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE. On the other hand, Team Brunel’s crew had sailed together a lot less than those two boats, while Team AkzoNobel had management issues that had disrupted their preparation, which resulted in several changes to senior crew in the early legs. “You can’t instantly replace those people…” Salter said when I talked to him. “If you look at this race again and again, no one has thrown the boat together six months before the start and gone out and done really well.”

Despite this inauspicious background, Team AkzoNobel and Team Brunel both decided to stay south on the theoretically optimal course. By December 14, AkzoNobel was coming up fast on the invisible limit of the Ice Exclusion Zone (a line drawn by race officials to keep them out of known areas of icebergs). They were going to have to jibe in 35 to 40 knots of windspeed. Nicholson was steering, and with all nine of the crew in position and on deck, he went for it. “We had a bad one,” he said in a video to the race office afterward. “I thought we had a good wave to go down. I should have pulled out of doing it, and we probably would have broached, but it wouldn’t have been the outcome that we had…”

They broke battens and pulled the mast track away from the spar.

It could have been a lot worse, but it could also have been a lot better. “On another day, we might have just got away with it; we might only have broken a little bit of track and one batten, and thought, ‘Oh, that was a bit on the edge and off we go.’ I’ve done that before many times,” Salter said. Instead, a crippled Team AkzoNobel limped into Melbourne in last place, well over three days after the leader, and immediately started the next race—against time to get the boat repaired and ready before the start of the next leg.

Team Brunel fared much better than Team AkzoNobel—they kept it together through the storm and finished in fourth place, less than two hours behind Vestas 11th Hour Racing and just over a day ahead of Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag. Both Team Brunel and Team AkzoNobel chose the fastest, southerly route; one came fourth, the other seventh and last, but—and here’s the controversial part—there’s an argument to be made that both boats made the wrong decision and took an unnecessary risk. It worked out for Team Brunel, but that still doesn’t make it the right decision, and here’s why: The crews did not fully set what might be gained by their choice against what could be lost. In both cases, the potential losses of going south outweighed the potential gains.

The upside of staying south was limited.

Could either crew realistically hope to beat the better drilled and prepared Dongfeng Race Team, MAPFRE and Vestas 11th Hour Racing in those conditions? Maybe later in the race, yes. But on this first excursion into the Southern Ocean, it was unlikely they would suddenly make the jump to the podium that had eluded them in the first two legs.

So, if there was little to no chance of a third place or better, why not go north with Turn the Tide and Scallywag? They could expect to beat both of them on that same northern route, which meant they would finish fifth at worst, with every chance of moving higher should any of the leaders have a problem or break down in the storm. And if both Team Brunel and Team AkzoNobel had chosen to go north, they would have been racing for exactly the same fourth place that they were effectively contesting in the south, but in much milder conditions with much less risk of damage or worse.

When I put this to Salter, he wasn’t ­convinced—or maybe he was. “There is a balance—I think that showed in the next Southern Ocean leg, where we went a very similar way again, and we got to a point where we thought we’re just going to back off a bit here because we know what damage can do. We did, and we dropped back a bit, not a big distance, but 50 or 100 miles behind the leading group. And on the approach to Cape Horn, we gradually caught them all up again. MAPFRE broke the mast track and the mainsail, and Vestas lost the rig soon after that as well. So, you get yourself up to third by doing that. It’s just picking the right time to play that strategy—and offshore sailing is so much about that.”

These are tough calls, and often they are made on gut feel—or after a long discussion that the most articulate and opinionated can win on the strength of their hand-­waving skills alone. There is a better way, a way to make the decision more analytical using tools based on formal decision-­making systems. The “theory of expected value” assesses the value of all the possible outcomes for each decision and multiplies each of them by the likelihood (the probability) of those outcomes. The results of each of these multiplications [value (V) x probability (P)] are then added together to give the expected value (E) for that decision: E = (V1 x P1) + (V2 x P2) and so on.

Once all the expected values have been calculated, then the decision with the highest expected value is the one to go for. It sounds complicated, but an example will make it clearer. Let’s look at the strategic choices for Team AkzoNobel and Team Brunel as the storm approached. The value for the outcome (V) will be the points available for each position in the leg. These were scored in reverse, and this leg was worth double points, so the winner got 14 points, second place 12 points, and so on down to last place, which was worth two points.

We’re going to make a few assumptions to keep the analysis relatively simple. So, we’ll assume the rest of the fleet made the same choices they did in the race and finished the leg successfully. Two boats went north, both of whom Team Brunel and Team AkzoNobel will beat if they don’t suffer damage, while three boats went south, none of whom they will beat, damage or no damage.

On the southern route, the pairs best possible result was fourth, and that would have been worth eight points. A second potential outcome was seventh and two points, if they suffered sufficient damage to stop them racing competitively but not stop racing altogether. The final possibility was that they suffered more serious damage and were unable to finish the leg, and unable to start the next one. I’m going to give this outcome a score of minus four points, equating to zero points for Leg 3 and a loss of a potential fourth-place finish in the following leg. (The next leg was not double points, so fourth scored four points.)

I’m assessing the probability of them ­racing hard all the way to the finish (and scoring fourth) as 60 percent, suffering moderate damage and coming last as 30 percent, and suffering more serious damage as 10 percent. So, now we can prepare a table:

Southern Route

We could build a much more complex table listing more outcomes and their probabilities, but I think the approach is clear with just these three options. So, the expected value (E) is the sum of the gains from each of these outcomes:

E = (0.6 x 8) + (0.3 x 2) + (0.1 x -4) = 5

On the northern route, the best possible score was fifth, and that would have netted them six points, with the outcome for moderate damage again seventh and two points. The outcome for serious damage was also minus four points.

While it wasn’t guaranteed that they would successfully complete the leg on the northern route, the chances were a lot higher, and I’m going to call it 90 percent, with a 9 percent chance of moderate damage and a 1 percent chance of serious damage. So, the table for the northern route looks as such:

Northern Route

And the expected value will be:

E = (0.9 x 6) + (0.09 x 2) + (0.01 x -4) = 5.54

This analysis produces an expected value on the northern route of 5.54 points compared to 5 points on the southern route. So, any decision based on expected value would be in favor of the northern route, supporting the earlier conclusion.

Now, maybe others would score the probabilities of damage ­differently—and it’s worthwhile to play around with the numbers to see how the outcome changes—but there’s no doubt that the analysis helps to clarify the choices. We’ve swapped hand-waving for assigning probabilities, and that has to improve any discussion and any decision made.

An expected-value analysis can help in other areas of our ­complex sport. One of the big problems facing any race-boat ­campaign, be it an America’s Cup team or a small keelboat shooting for top 10 at the national championship, is there are more ways to improve performance than time or money to pursue them. It’s always hard to make decisions about where to put limited resources when the outcomes are uncertain, and expected value provides an analytical approach, calculating an expected cost for each unit of performance gain.

The process starts by creating a list of the performance projects that are under consideration. For example, practicing for a weekend, buying new sails, or hiring a coach for the season. A simple version of the calculation would be to assess the potential speed improvement (this would be V) for three cases: the best outcome, worst outcome and most likely outcome for each option being considered. We would then assign a probability (P) to each of these possible outcomes and use these three pairs of numbers [speed improvement (V) and probability (P)] to calculate the expected value just as we did for the route choice ahead of the storm.

In this case, we can go a step further: By dividing the ­monetary cost of each option by its expected value, we can generate a cost-effectiveness ratio. This allows us to tackle the issue of balancing resources in a parallel way to balancing risks—and expected value can be just as useful in revealing the trade-offs. There are limitations to the approach; for instance, there is no allowance for how these gains will degrade with time. Nevertheless, it’s still a great way of tackling any problem where resources are being assigned in uncertain circumstances—just one of the many tough calls in sailing that the concept of expected value can help to illuminate.

The post The Weight of Risk versus Reward appeared first on Sailing World.

With more than 12 million registered boats in the United States, many of these sailors and boaters see firsthand the issues that our oceans face such as plastic pollution, oil spills and marine habitat destruction. Sailors for the Sea is mobilizing engaged conservationists within the sailing and boating community addressing pressing ocean health issues.

Among the sailors who have witnessed drastic changes in ocean health over time is Dee Caffari, an exemplary role-model in the sailing community. She has sailed around the world six times and is the first woman to have sailed single-handed and non-stop around the world in both directions. As a sailor who is passionate about ocean health, she recently led the ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic’ team that competed in the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18. Turn the Tide on Plastic brought widespread awareness about the issue of plastic pollution and inspired many to limit single-use plastics in their everyday lives.

What is your sailing/boating background?

I started out my career as a secondary school PE teacher and came to the sport of sailing quite late compared to many. My big break was becoming the first female to circumnavigate the globe against the winds and currents (the wrong way) solo and non-stop. The success of that, led to me taking part in the Vendee Globe in 2008/9 – another solo non-stop voyage around the world, but this time the right way round and competing against some of the best sailors in the world. More recently I have taken part in two iterations of The Ocean Race (formerly The Volvo Ocean Race). In the last edition, I led ‘ Turn the Tide on Plastic’ – the first mixed gender youth team to take part in the race with a strong sustainability message that gained huge momentum.

What was your “aha moment” that turned you into a conservationist?

Over the last decade I have seen firsthand the increase in ocean pollution, particularly the presence of plastics. As well as the obvious plastic debris seen on beaches and in oceans across the world, the research we carried out on ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic’ revealed that there are micro plastics present in every ocean across the globe. This is extremely worrying, not only because it is negatively impacting marine wildlife, but with fish ingesting micro plastics it is now becoming part of our food chain and we don’t know the impact this will have on the health of the human race.

What has changed more dramatically during your lifetime, the sport of sailing or ocean health?

Ocean health is at a critical point and has deteriorated significantly in my lifetime. Immediate and drastic action needs to be taken to halt and reverse the impact the human race is having on the world. Climate change and pollution are the two biggest issues facing our generation and I believe we need a combination of legislative and behavioral change to make a difference.

How do you think a community of Green Boaters dedicated to protecting the ocean can be impactful?

I believe that the oceans need all the help they can get. Anything that we can do, no matter how small or large, to make a positive contribution is worthwhile. A great part of the process is education and having a network of dedicated ocean advocates across the globe spreading the word and leading by example is to be encouraged.

What commitments have you made towards restoring ocean health and what would you challenge other Green Boaters to do?

In my day to day life, I avoid single use plastic as much as possible. The less we consume, the less demand there will be for manufacturers to produce it. As consumers, we need to vote with our purses to enforce change. We often underestimate the power we have on corporations. If the demand is not there then they will be forced to change their ways. Projects I am involved with, both on and off the water, need to be sustainable and have an ocean health message. Sailors can look at alternative power supply onboard, be that solar, wind or hydro. We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuels and there is a growth of marinized electric engines and even coach boats for Olympic squads are looking at and using alternative energy sources.

Editor’s note: Sailors for the Sea Powered by Oceana, is the world’s only ocean conservation organization that engages, educates and activates the sailing and boating community toward restoring ocean health. Join their leading community of Green Boaters to save our oceans visit http://bit.ly/defending-our-seas-caffari. For more information, visit sailorsforthesea.org or follow them @SailorsfortheSea on Facebook and @SailorsfortheSea on Instagram.

The post Dee’s For the Seas appeared first on Sailing World.

Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 03 on board Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag. Libby Greenhalgh at the nav station planning the next move. 20 March, 2018.

Late in the afternoon on January 6, 2018, the Volvo Ocean Race fleet was charging northward at more than 15 knots across the Coral Sea, sailing a leg of the race from Melbourne, Australia, to Hong Kong. The Volvo Ocean 65s were many miles from the nearest port. SHK Scallywag, in last place on the position reports, was crossing over the vast Lansdowne Bank. On the north end of the bank, there is an area called Nereus Reef, where the water depth is only 12 feet deep in some places. Scallywag drew just over 15 feet. Every boat in the fleet was being tracked electronically, and Rick Tomlinson, the official observer on duty in the event’s race-control office, was monitoring their tracks. According to the international jury serving as the protest committee for the race, Tomlinson was “an employee of Volvo Ocean Race who, as a member of race control, has a responsibility for the safety of all competitors.”

Tomlinson noticed that Scallywag was on a collision course with Nereus Reef, so he emailed the boat’s navigator. “Just so I can relax a bit here in race control,” he wrote, “tell me you are happy with your course in relation to Nereus Reef on Lansdowne Bank.”

It’s interesting to watch the gyrations in Scallywag‘s track immediately after the boat received the message. Before receiving the email, it had been heading just east of north at 16 knots. At about 0800 UTC it bore off to the east and slowed to around 7 knots. An hour later, it had turned through south to a westerly course, and at 1120, it was back on its original course and speed. The race committee estimated that Scallywag lost 50 miles on the rest of the fleet during the time it was off course and sailing at reduced speed while working out a way around Nereus Reef.

The race committee was aware that when Scallywag acted in response to the committee’s email the committee was an outside source, and that it had provided assistance. Rule 41 (see box) prohibits a boat from receiving such help unless one of the four exceptions in rules 41(a), (b), (c) or (d) applies. An international jury had been appointed for the Volvo Ocean Race. Rule N2.1, which applies when there is an international jury for a race, states, “When asked by the organizing authority or the race committee, [the IJ] shall advise and assist them on any matter directly affecting the fairness of the competition.” The race committee took advantage of this rule to ask the jury, “[Did our email to Scallywag] constitute outside assistance under RRS 41 as the crew were in danger? Please would you consider and advise.” The international jury answered as follows:

“The jury advises that race control’s action did not result in a breach of Rule 41 by SHK Scallywag. SHK Scallywag did receive help from an outside source, in this case the race control. However, the help given is permitted under Rule 41(d). The information was not requested by SHK Scallywag, so it was unsolicited information. The source, in this case a member of the race control, was a disinterested source for the purposes of Rule 41 because he had no personal or other interest in the position of SHK Scallywag relative to other boats in the race. Nor would he gain or lose in any way as a result of the position of SHK Scallywag in the race.

“The source was an employee of Volvo Ocean Race who, as a member of race control, has a responsibility for the safety of all competitors. Asking the question he did was therefore a proper action for him to take.”

There were never any protests or requests for redress as a result of the help given to Scallywag. However, there was discussion among judges and online pundits. Everyone seemed to agree with the jury statements about Rule 41(d), but many were puzzled that the jury did not discuss Rule 41(a). The race committee had said in its request for advice that the crew of Scallywag was “in danger.” Rule 41(a) says that a boat may receive help “for a crewmember who is … in danger.” Therefore, the exception in Rule 41(a), as well as the exception in Rule 41(d), applied to Scallywag, but the jury only mentioned Rule 41(d). If exception 41(a) applied, then the last sentence of Rule 41 also applied. That last sentence allowed any boat, or the race committee or the protest committee, to protest Scallywag if it received “a significant advantage in the race from help received under Rule 41(a).”

Rule 41 Outside Help

A boat shall not receive help from any outside source, except

• (a) help for a crewmember who is ill, injured or in danger;
• (b) after a collision, help from the crew of the other vessel to get clear;
• (c) help in the form of ­information freely available to all boats;
• (d) unsolicited information from a disinterested source, which may be another boat in the same race.

However, a boat that gains a significant advantage in the race from help received under rule 41(a) may be protested and penalized; any penalty may be less than disqualification.

If a protest had been made, then the jury might have faced a very difficult task, with no precedent to my knowledge, determining what penalty “less than disqualification” to assess.

Let’s step away from the Scallywag incident for a moment and discuss how the words “or in danger” came to be included in Rule 41(a). For decades before 2013, the words “or in danger” were not in the rules about outside help.

This wording was added in 2013, and the story behind the rule change is an interesting one.

For decades, it had been permissible for a boat to receive outside help under Rule 41(a) for a member of the crew who is ill or injured. In 2013, that rule was expanded to also permit outside help for a crewmember “in danger.” The change came about following an incident several years ago at a world championship for Cadet class dinghies near Perth, Australia. A week before the first race, a swimmer was attacked and mauled by a great white shark in the waters where the championship was to be held. Rather than cancel the event, organizers arranged for additional safety boats to patrol the course and changed Rule 41(a) with a sailing ­instruction that permitted competitors to receive outside help when they were in danger. The kids were told that if they capsized or fell overboard, they would immediately receive help getting their boats up and themselves back in the boat, and they would then be permitted to continue in the race. Ultimately, there was never a need, but when World Sailing leadership found out about the rule change made at the event in Perth, it strongly supported including it in the 2013 rule book.

Not many of us will ever be in danger of shark attacks or running onto Nereus Reef in the Coral Sea, but we’ve probably all seen situations where a crewmember of a boat is in some danger, perhaps because he or she became separated from the boat, and then is helped out of danger by another boat in the race, an official boat or even a boat that just happens by and has no connection at all to the race. Before 2013, any boat that received help for a crewmember in danger broke the outside-help rule and was expected to retire from the race. That part of the outside-help rule often led to clashes between competitors and rescuers. When rescuers offered help, competitors, not wishing to have to retire from the race, would refuse to accept the help and try to get back aboard their boat ­unassisted and continue racing.

Since 2013, a crewmember in danger that is helped does not break Rule 41 and may continue in the race. The last sentence of current Rule 41 was also added in 2013. It was added because of concern that a situation like the one I will describe now would occur: Going into the last race of a series for Optimists, Abel and Cain are tied for first place. Whoever finishes ahead of the other will win the series. On the last leg, Abel and Cain are overlapped and battling each other when a squall hits the fleet, capsizing many boats, including Abel and Cain, who become separated from their Optis. They are “in danger” because the water is cold and hypothermia is a risk. Immediately after the squall passes, safety boats hurry to place sailors back in contact with their dinghies. Abel is helped a couple of minutes before Cain, so Abel finishes ahead of Cain and wins the series. This seems unfair, and it is for just such an incident. Thus, the last sentence of current Rule 41. It permits Cain to protest Abel and enables the protest committee to penalize Abel just enough to make the outcome fair, which in this case would mean creating a tie between Cain and Abel.

The discussion stimulated by the Scallywag incident has uncovered many ambiguities in Rule 41(a) and Rule 41’s last sentence. Here is a list: Did Scallywag “gain a significant advantage” from the help it received? The answer isn’t obvious. It was in last place when the email arrived, and the rest of the fleet advanced 50 miles before Scallywag was back on course. No advantage there. It would not have finished at all, however, if it had piled onto the reef and torn open its hull. That’s a significant ­disadvantage, for sure.

Suppose someone wanted to protest Scallywag. A protest is an allegation that a boat has broken a rule, and Rule 61.2 requires a protestor to identify that rule in writing. Scallywag did not break Rule 41 by receiving outside help because all of its crew were in danger. So what rule did Scallywag break? Rules under which protests are made state, or clearly imply (see, for example, Rule 42.2), that a boat “shall” or “shall not” do something. Rule 41’s last sentence does not make such a statement. So, a boat that receives help permitted by Rule 41(a) does not break Rule 41 or any other rule that I know of.

Rule 64.1 permits the protest committee to penalize only a boat that “has broken a rule and is not exonerated.” Scallywag, therefore, cannot be penalized even if the penalty the protest committee wanted to give was substantially less than disqualification. In the Abel and Cain ­incident, if Abel realized that by accepting help, he might be penalized, he would probably have refused to accept the help. The words “or in danger” were added to Rule 41(a) in order to avoid competitors refusing to accept help. So, the last sentence of Rule 41 works against the intent of the words that were added to Rule 41(a).

The bottom line: Rule 41 has several logical and practical problems. What should World Sailing do? I have discussed these issues with several experienced judges and sailors, and the consensus seems to be that the last sentence of Rule 41 should be deleted. This would mean that if an incident like the Abel and Cain one ever occurred, an unfair result would occur. But lots of “stuff” can happen to make the result of a sailboat race seem random or unfair. Until I learned of the Scallywag incident, I had never heard of the last sentence of Rule 41 ever being applied, so its deletion would be unlikely to result in many, if any, unfair outcomes.

Email if you know of a penalty that was given under Rule 41’s last sentence. I would be interested to hear your views on whether you think deleting Rule 41’s last sentence is a good idea.

The post Sailing Rules: When Outside Help Is Allowed appeared first on Sailing World.

Striding through the Volvo Ocean Race Village that bloomed out of the concrete around Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour, Blair Tuke is on a mission. When he reaches the Mapfre base out on the Halsey Wharf, he enters a jam-packed shipping container, wedging himself between towers of freeze-dried food and racks of foul-weather gear that are waiting for the next dive into the Southern Ocean. He quickly whips off his team shirt and pulls on a black T-shirt that is distinctly Kiwi.

The illustration on the tee is a ­chalkboard with a tally of some of the country’s more popular fish — snapper, kahawai and kingies. Aside from sailing, fishing is Tuke’s other love.

Offshore veteran Neal McDonald, Mapfre’s performance manager, pokes his head into the container. “You’ve come in disguise today, have you?”

“Yeah,” replies Tuke. “It’s a bit quicker getting through the village this way.”

Perhaps incognito he might not have to stop every 20 footsteps or so to shake hands or engage in friendly banter.

Not that Tuke is tongue-tied or ­uncomfortable in a crowd. On the contrary. His Olympic coach, Hamish Willcox, calls him the most “socially astute” person he’s ever come across. “He has compassion with a capital C.” He’s easygoing, warm and open in his conversation.

But perhaps it’s because Tuke — at 28, already an America’s Cup winner, six‑time world champion, and Olympic gold and silver medalist — wants to blend in with the crowd. He relishes rare moments of normality.

He admits he no longer posts photos on Instagram of his family home in an idyllic and secluded bay within the Bay of Islands. “I try to keep it on the down-low a little bit,” he says. “It’s a pretty special spot.”

Not long after Mapfre crossed the Volvo Ocean Race’s sixth-leg finish line on the Waitemata Harbour (in third place), Tuke escaped with his three brothers — Nathan, Daniel and Jesse — to Apple Tree Bay, and the house in which they grew up. Soon, not far off the front lawn, the brothers were freediving and spearfishing, collecting a bounty of seafood: crayfish, paua (abalone), snapper, kingfish and John Dory.

Blair, the third-born, speaks passionately about taking from, but also protecting, New Zealand’s marine life. “I love freediving especially. It’s a much more sustainable way to fish because you take what you want to eat and don’t hurt anything else. I’d like to do more to raise awareness, to try to spread the message of how much trouble our oceans are in.”

This is a side of Tuke that few people know. That and his passion for rugby. He tries, sometimes in vain, to keep a balanced life.

Although he would almost become the first sailor in history to claim the “triple crown” — Olympic gold, America’s Cup and a Volvo Ocean Race title — that elusive honor doesn’t consume him.

“It’s not really all-important to me. My main goal is to do this race, learn from it and fulfill my childhood dream.”

A dream that began with a shabby old dinghy, and a book on his oceangoing idols.

On the main stage on Te Wero Island in the Viaduct, two brothers tussle over a microphone. Their mother watches, ­unconcerned, from a bean bag out in front.

Jesse is the village compère during the Volvo Ocean Race stopover — responsible for a public grilling of his older brother in a Saturday-morning Q&A session.

“So, Blair, where to from here?” he asks. Both brothers laugh at the family inside joke. Even though his brothers declare they’re his biggest fans, they won’t let the heavily decorated Tuke rise above his station.

Blair tells the 100 or so people who’ve gathered that, first, there is Emirates Team New Zealand’s defense of the 2021 America’s Cup to formulate, and that he and Peter Burling are considering mounting a third Olympic campaign for Tokyo 2020.

He reveals they are also thinking about entering a New Zealand-flagged boat in a future VOR. “Pete and I would love to bring a team together, and hopefully in the next race,” he says.

“I don’t know how he does it all,” Jesse says. “He was a lot more driven than me when it came to sailing as kids. I knew I wasn’t cut out for it, because he would go sailing every day after school.” The brothers won a 29er national title together, but while one drifted away from the sport, the other sailed from strength to incredible strength.

Newport stopover. Official unveiling of the OMEGA Volvo Ocean Race winner’s watch. 17 May, 2018.

The Tuke boys grew up in paradise, at the end of the Kerikeri Inlet in the ­postcard-perfect Bay of Islands. “We had special times. After school we’d build huts in the bush or go down to the water and cruise around on our boogie boards and kayaks. Our imaginations ran wild,” Jesse says.

Their father, Andy, imported fishing gear. Their mom, Karin, ran the local ­bookshop and post office in town. They bought a cruising yacht, a Warwick 56, when Blair was 8.

But it wasn’t till age 11 that Tuke learned to sail. It began with a school sailing day run by local teacher Derry Godbert. A Kiwi coaching legend, he’s now well into his 80s and still teaching kids to sail.

After Tuke “kind of liked” the sailing day, his parents bought an old P-class dinghy for $200. They kept it on the lawn at home and mucked around in it in summer.

“Although I didn’t sail until later than most kids, a big thing going for me was growing up around the water. I understood the tide and the wind,” Tuke says. “I wouldn’t say I was a fully natural sailor. I had to work pretty hard at it.”

Tuke bypassed the P-class route most Kiwi kids follow and learned team racing. Among the fleet of Kerikeri kids were Brad Farrand, who sailed the Volvo Ocean Race with Dutch entry AkzoNobel, and Andy Maloney, who pedaled next to Tuke on Team New Zealand’s AC50 in Bermuda. “We figured out then that the more hours we spent on the water, the faster we could make the boats go,” Tuke recalls. Homework wasn’t a priority.

Tuke also loved New Zealand’s national game, rugby, and played until he was 15. “Some of my best sporting competitions were playing rugby on cold Saturday mornings,” says the promising young halfback. “I still have a pretty big passion for it.”

He now sees he was unlikely to have ever made the All Blacks. But it was still a tough decision to quit the game, even when the alternative was a trip to Belgium to compete at the 2005 Splash World Championship. It was a wise choice. On his third attempt at the Splash worlds, in Riva del Garda, Italy, 17-year-old Tuke won his first world title.

By then, the Tuke family had moved to Auckland, living in the Viaduct on board a boat for a year. Tuke left school early to take up an electrical apprenticeship. “I didn’t want to go to university. I’d rather work and learn,” he says.

Leg 11, from Gothenburg to The Hague, day 03 on board MAPFRE, Blair Tuke. 23 June, 2018.

“I didn’t think sailing would be my life. I just wanted to be a better sailor, so I took every opportunity that came.” He went to two Youth Worlds in the 29er, then came under the tutelage of Olympic boardsailing gold medalist Bruce Kendall, in a Tornado campaign that didn’t qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Nevertheless, Tuke learned “good life skills” from the avant-garde Kendall. “He reinforced the importance of always enjoying what you’re doing, and always being who you are,” Tuke says. “I think I’ve been pretty good at that.”

I t was around this time that Tuke first met Burling. They’d been New Zealand teammates at the Youth Olympic festival in Australia and spent a summer racing against each other in the International 420s. Burling and his crewmate Peter Evans won back-to-back world International 420 titles before racing the 470 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Burling, then 17, sent Tuke an email. “He knew he and Carl would be too big for the 470 and wanted another challenge. So, we sat down with our parents and talked about an Olympic campaign. We bought a pretty crappy 49er for $5,000 and said, ‘Let’s try it out for a few months and see how it goes,’” Tuke recalls.

And so began one of the greatest ­partnerships in world sailing history.

Tuke was “super stoked” with their silver medal at the London Olympics. “It was where we were meant to be.” They’d climbed a steep learning curve, with the help of eventual gold medalists, Australians Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen. “But we ran out of time — something we rectified later,” says Tuke.

Prologue arrival in Alicante Stopover. Boats arriving. Photo by Pedro Martinez/Volvo Ocean Race. 12 October, 2017.

It was clear the two of them had a golden relationship. Willcox, their 49er coach, always saw it. “When you put two incredible sailors together and the chemistry works, then you’re getting 200 percent out of that performance. Pete and Blair are able to push the right buttons together and have a huge amount of respect and trust that makes it work.”

They are great mates, Tuke confirms. “It helps that from the start, it was always a two-way campaign with an equal say in ­everything — using our skill sets the best we can, knowing the other guy is doing all he can.”

Tuke’s strengths are tactics, making the boat go faster and attention to detail. Burling, the skipper, is stronger at rigging and tuning the boat.

In the four years leading up to the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Kiwis were unbeaten in an unprecedented 27 straight 49er regattas. Until the final practice event in Rio. They finished third, but Tuke sees it now as a godsend. They had the wrong mast and weren’t focused on racing.

Come the Rio Olympics, they never put a foot wrong. Tuke and Burling were honored as the New Zealand team captains, carrying the flag into the opening ceremony, and soon after, on Guanabara Bay, they clinched gold before the medal race. “The most pleasing thing was that we sailed one of our best regattas. Not many people can do that under the pressure of the Olympics,” Tuke says.

Cape Town Stopover. Peter Burling and Blair Tuke get their hair done at the barber. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race. 25 November, 2017

He would love to defend that Olympic title in Tokyo. “But we’ve got to be 100 percent sure we can do it properly, or we walk away knowing we’ve done a great job.”

The end of 2016 was one of the toughest times Tuke faced in his sailing career. “We’d come off a massive high and went straight into the America’s Cup trenches,” he remembers. “Finding our feet in the place was a bit of a challenge.”

That was until the beginning of 2017, when the AC50 Aotearoa New Zealand was launched, with its radical cyclor-power system, and the team all came together.

“People probably didn’t realize what my job was, even now. ‘Flight controller’ was what we called it,” Tuke says of his job pedaling and controlling the daggerboards. “With all the innovation and technology, I was learning right the way through.”

He enjoyed the fact he wasn’t “under the same scrutiny” as Burling, the helmsman and ultimately the spokesman of the team. “I found it a lot easier than I did at the Olympics, pressure-wise. In Bermuda, I didn’t have that much lumbered on me, so it was quite easy to go about my job,” he says.

It wasn’t until they reached Bermuda that Tuke knew they had a fast boat. He knew they could win the America’s Cup in their first loss to defenders Oracle in the round-robin series. “We just mucked up two simple things in that race. Other than that, the boat was going fast, and we were getting better sailing it.”

The day Tuke was catapulted into the sea when the boat pitch-poled, he’d never been more afraid.

“At first it was slow motion, then it all happened super quick. I was controlling the foils, looking at the leeward hull, and all I could think about was the board. But then I was in the water, and I didn’t know if I was coming up underneath the boat.”

When he popped up, he tapped his helmet, letting the chase-boat driver know he was OK. It took a while longer for him to be certain the boat would be OK too.

When Tuke first started sailing, he read Australian journalist Rob Mundle’s book Ocean Warriors, about the 2001-02 Volvo Ocean Race. “I read it and thought, This race is sweet. I want to do this,” he says. As a teen, he sailed with his father from Auckland to Fiji three times and loved it.

The invitation to sail in the VOR came straight from Mapfre skipper Xabi Fernández, who had sailed against Tuke in the 49ers.

“I love the combination of tight racing, adventure and endurance,” he says. “There’s not a lot of time to think about things at home, or big philosophical life issues. You sail the boat, try to make it go fast, then sleep and eat. You learn how to keep pushing when you’re tired. You’re always conscious of how you act and how that relates to others. I’ve learned so much about how to get the best out of others.”

Tuke’s watch captain Pablo Arrarte says the Kiwi is a good man to have on board, not just for his sailing skills. “When he’s happy on the boat, he’s a good singer,” Arrarte says. And then Tuke breaks into song: “I’m coming home, I’m coming home. I’ve sailed the world, I’m coming home.”

On that note, Tuke says, it’s time he tried to regain some equilibrium in his life. There hasn’t been time lately for him to settle down in a home or have a girlfriend.

“I think I’ll sail for a big chunk of my life, but obviously, there are other things I want to do. It’s been hard to have a balance,” he says. “So now I have to try and bring that back a little bit.”

The post Blair Tuke is Born for the Sea appeared first on Sailing World.

The 24-hour speed record is a coveted jewel in the Volvo Ocean Race crown. When the opportunity presents itself, the sailors say, go for it. One such occasion came halfway through Leg 9 of the recent edition of the race, and it was the two women and seven men of AkzoNobel who would break the record once and then do so again the following day, pegging the record at 602.51 nautical miles. For helmsman Justin Ferris, of New Zealand, a 42-year-old four-time veteran of the race, it was a magic carpet ride into the race’s history books. Here’s his account.

Normally in the Northern Atlantic you’ll get an opportunity to get a good 24-hour run. Plus, the wind shift matched the great circle route almost perfectly, allowing us to sail maximum mileage. The sea state was a big factor though. We would call it almost flat, way flatter than anything we’d experienced in the Southern Ocean legs. It was organized most of the time, allowing for very fast sailing.

With the wind, the sea state and the current all aligned with the routing, it presented us with two magical days of yachting. We didn’t intend to split earlier in the leg with Mapfre and Dongfeng like we did. It was forced by having more pressure and shifts to the south, and we kept extending. The farther we went that way and the longer it lasted, the stronger our position became. Once into the fresh conditions, we were able to sail another 10 degrees wider than them for the first 24-hour run. Then, the currents lined up perfectly. That was a bit of good fortune, but the router placed us in favorable current and the Gulf Stream was ripping. We had periods where we never dipped below 27 knots. The boat was locked in and going, just awesome.

It was one stint of fast sailing, divided into two different stages. We’d planned for it, and the boat was set up well because we’d taken the previous afternoon to organize our internal stack, getting it as far aft as we could. We made sure the sails were flaked as small as we could get them and stacked on deck as far aft as we could put them.

Being able to maximize the aft stack and keep the bow up and as much water off the deck as we can allows us to sail faster. It also helps with the stability because we’re gaining righting moment when we can keep that back corner in the water. This applies to the internal gear stack as well. We’re limited by how far aft we can get it — as far back as the aft bulkhead. That requires knowing what’s the heaviest and making sure it’s in the aft-most outboard corner: the food, tool boxes, emergency gear, life jackets, pumps. We have a list of weights for each bag, and we know which ones are heaviest so we make sure each one goes in the right place.

When we were finally able to unleash it, the boat was locked in and safe. No one ever got knocked off the wheel, and we were able to sail the boat at 100 percent of its polars the entire run. We never once had to put the bow down to slow the boat; it was just constant speed. We were limited to the angle we could sail, however. It was 120 true-wind angle, and that was it. There was one short period where it did get fresh and we had to sail a bit wider, but the boat was essentially locked in at 120, which was a perfect angle for the waves and the three headsails we had up: the J-Zero, which is the non-overlapping code zero, and two staysails.

Depending on how fresh it was at the time, we would just furl the staysails as we needed to. We never took down any sails. We could remove a little bit of sail area, and when we needed it back, it was a two-minute job to unfurl it and be off again. Conditions were so stable we could keep the boat charging, with one reef in the main the whole time. Driving at such a pace wasn’t easy though. Standing at the wheel for two hours was punishing, and it was a struggle to keep water from my eyes and hang on, getting pounded with body shots from the waves crashing across the deck. But it wasn’t the Southern Ocean either, no massive crashes at the bottom of waves. I was much warmer too. It only got down to 12 degrees at one point, which is way more pleasant than dealing with the snow flurries and ice of the Southern Ocean.

After a two-hour stint at the wheel, you’re pretty shattered. That’s two hours of hanging on, but it’s the best feeling coming to the end of your shift knowing you’ve had a good turn in the fun room and you’ve gone fast. Only then could I actually sleep properly.

Chris Nicholson, Luke Malloy, Nicolai Sehested and I were the four drivers during this run. I’m sure everyone wanted to jump in to have a little piece of the record, but we’re pretty selfish when we’re having this much fun. Still, everyone knows their abilities, and when the conditions are right, we need the right guys driving. When it’s fast and we need to be accurate, we have to limit it down to the people who are safe.

What was different from other legs was we didn’t have the massive speed crashes from the waves stopping us. There was no violent motion to the boat; we could go below and move about, stand up, use the toilet. It was far more manageable than other conditions we’d experienced. The boat is nice to drive in these conditions. With so many small sails up forward, the boat is unloaded.

Crashing and launching off of waves there would be the occasional loud bang, but these boats are so solid compared to the Volvo 70s, where we had to be aware about how we landed on waves and make sure we didn’t break the boat. There was never any concern. It’s way more relaxed, but when the same sails are up for 24 hours, we do start thinking about chafe. How good is the tack line? How’s the lock strop? What’s the sheet like running through the outrigger? We were conscious of potential problems but hopeful nothing would happen. We couldn’t stop and check. We just pushed through, fingers crossed it all held together, and when we hit the high-pressure ridge, it was a relief to relax and know the fast sailing was done and no one could beat our record. That’s locked in and safe until the next big blow.

—­Justin Ferris, as told to Dave Reed

The post A New Volvo Ocean 65 24-Hour Distance Record appeared first on Sailing World.

Skipper Charles Caudrelier led his team to victory on the final leg of the race, a 970-mile sprint from Gothenburg, Sweden to The Hague.

Incredibly, it marked the first leg win for the team – it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Three teams started Leg 11 of the race in a dead heat on the overall leaderboard. The finishing order between MAPFRE, Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team at The Hague would determine their place on the overall race podium.

Each of those three teams led at various points on the leg and had their opportunities to grab the prize.

But it was Caudrelier and his crew who made a bold call on Saturday evening to take a coastal route to the finish, which squeezed them tight against the shoreline and separated from the other leaders by a series of Exclusion Zones.

“We were not in such a good position, but we trusted our choice and we pushed,” Caudrelier said. “The others didn’t follow us, but we believed and we won…”

The decision hurt the team in the short term as they tumbled down the leaderboard. But by Sunday morning, with less than 100 miles left to race, weather routing projections had the top boats finishing within minutes of each other. None had been able to break away overnight, despite the significant splits on the race course.

“We knew that we would fall behind initially and that if it came good it would only be at the end. The last position report (1300 UTC on Sunday) we were 27-miles from the finish and they were 20-miles and we thought it was over. But then I did a small weather routing and it showed we could end up one-mile ahead so I woke everyone up and said, ‘let’s push!’”

As the teams finally converged again on Sunday afternoon, just a few miles from the finish, it was Dongfeng Race Team, flying down the coast from the north sliding in front of the offshore group, to earn their first leg win, propelling Caudrelier’s team to overall victory.

“We always trusted each other. Nobody thought we were going to win this last leg, but I had a good feeling,” an emotional Caudrelier said, after thanking his supporters and team. “I said ‘we can’t lose, we can’t lose, we can’t lose’… and we won!”

The overall results make this the closest finish in the 45-year history of the race and marks the first win for a Chinese-flagged team. It also means Carolijn Brouwer and Marie Riou were on board as the first women sailors to win the Volvo Ocean Race.

Xabi Fernández’s MAPFRE was third on the leg, which put the team into second overall.

“It has been tough,” Fernández admitted. “We sailed very well the whole way around the world and on this leg as well, so naturally we’re a bit disappointed. We were very, very close this time, but it was not quite enough. So we have to say congratulations to Dongfeng who sailed a little bit better than us.”

Team Brunel skipper Bouwe Bekking would have liked nothing more than to win the race for the first time in eight tries with a home finish in The Netherlands. But it wasn’t to be. His fourth-place leg finish left the team in third place overall.

“Third place, still on the podium, I think we can be pretty proud of that as a team,” he said. “We thought we had made the right choice (to go further offshore) and we expected a windshift. It came 90-minutes too late and that was the race. But that’s yacht racing. And, of course, we have to congratulate Dongfeng and MAPFRE for their results.”

Second place on the final leg into The Hague was Dutch skipper Simeon Tienpont and his team AkzoNobel, who had previously secured fourth place on the overall leaderboard.

“It’s incredible to finish on the podium in our hometown,” Tienpont said. “We would have loved to have been fighting into The Hague for the final podium but to have set the 24-hour speed record and to get six podium finishes in the race is a testament to the job everyone on our team – on the boat and on shore – have done.”

Vestas 11th Hour Racing had already been locked into fifth place on the scoreboard and after a promising start to Leg 11, had a disappointing seventh place finish on the leg.

“We have a great group of folks on this team,” skipper Charlie Enright said. “We’ve been through a lot and I’m not sure any other group could have dealt with the challenges we have faced the way we did. It’s something special and we’re going to continue to work together moving forward. This was a tough way to go out certainly, but we have one more opportunity with the In-Port Race this weekend.”

That In-Port Race, scheduled for Saturday afternoon, will determine the sixth and seventh place positions in this edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. Both SHK/Scallywag and Turn the Tide on Plastic finished the Volvo Ocean Race on equal points.

The tie-break mechanism is the In-Port Race Series, where David Witt’s Scallywag team currently holds the lead. But Dee Caffari’s Turn the Tide on Plastic is just three points behind and a strong finish on Saturday could lift them off the bottom of the leaderboard.

“We can’t help but smile today. We’ve done it,” said Caffari. “This leg was like the longest In-Port Race ever. A lot of corners to go around, and we gave it 100 per cent and left nothing in the tank.”

For David Witt, the finish was bittersweet the loss of John Fisher overboard in the Southern Ocean top of mind.

“I have very mixed emotions right now,” Witt said dockside immediately after finishing. “I’m incredibly proud of our team both on and off the water. We’re very tight and we have gone through a lot… But I’m also sad of course. I didn’t finish it with my best mate (John Fisher) who we started with. So very mixed emotions, but I’m glad we finished it.”

The teams will celebrate their accomplishments and take well-earned rest on Monday. The rest of the week will see activities in The Hague building towards the final In-Port Race and Awards Night on June 30.

Volvo Ocean Race Leg 11 Final Leaderboard – Saturday 23 June

1. Dongfeng Race Team – 3 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes, 32 seconds

2. team AkzoNobel – 3 days, 3 hours, 38 minutes, 31 seconds

3. MAPFRE – 3 days, 3 hours, 39 minutes, 25 seconds

4. Team Brunel – 3 days, 3 hours, 45 minutes, 52 seconds

5. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 3 days, 3 hours, 56 minutes, 56 seconds

6. SHK / Scallywag – 3 days, 4 hours, 01 minutes, 32 seconds

7. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 3 days, 4 hours, 05 minutes, 36 seconds

Volvo Ocean Race Overall Points Leaderboard after Leg 11

1. Dongfeng Race Team – 73 points

2. MAPFRE – 70 points

3. Team Brunel – 69 points

4. team AkzoNobel – 59 points

5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 39 points

6. SHK / Scallywag – 32 points *

7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 32 points *

The post Bold Split Earns Dongfeng Its Volvo Ocean Race Win appeared first on Sailing World.

Three teams – MAPFRE, Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team – will start the final leg in a dead heat at the top of the table, with the overall title on the line. It’s an unprecedented scenario in the 45-year history of the race.

On a rainy, blustery Thursday evening in Gothenburg, skipper Bouwe Bekking led his Team Brunel to a come-from-behind win in Leg 10 over Xabi Fernández’s MAPFRE squad, who claimed second place, less than two-minutes behind after nearly 1,500 nautical miles of bow to bow racing.

“We did a fantastic job as a team and of course the result was better than we could have dreamed,” Bekking said. “We wanted to beat the two red boats but a win to get the bonus point is really nice…

“The pressure was on but we knew we just needed to sail the boat the best we could and not do any crazy things. Very happy how it all ended up.”

Bekking has led his team on an incredible comeback pace, following a dismal opening half to the race. At the conclusion of Leg 6 into Auckland, the team was mired in sixth place, on just 20 points. In comparison, MAPFRE, the race leader at the time, had already won 39 points.

But since then, Team Brunel has been on fire, posting a 1-2-1-1 scoreline over the past four legs, to bully its way to equal first at the top of the leaderboard, after collecting 45 out of a possible 47 points, an incredible scoring ratio.

The Leg 10 results mean MAPFRE and Team Brunel sit equal at the top of the leaderboard with 65 points. MAPFRE will be ranked in first place by virtue of leading the In-Port Race Series, which is the tie-break mechanism for the Volvo Ocean Race.

Charles Caudrelier’s Dongfeng Race Team, who was the leader at the beginning of Leg 10, had a fourth place finish into Gothenburg, putting Dongfeng on 64 points (although the team is in pole position to earn an additional bonus point for best elapsed time which will be added after the Leg 11 finish).

This means the top three boats in the Volvo Ocean Race will start the final sprint into The Hague on June 21 in a dead heat, with the overall title on the line.

Leg 10, from Cardiff to Gothenburg, arrivals. 14 June, 2018.

“For the fans it’s going to be an exciting last leg,” said Caudrelier after the finish. “And for us as well. We will give all we have and try for our first leg victory. But really we just have to be ahead of the other two. We can do it!”

“It was a very good leg for us and a good result as well, but a little bit painful the way it happened,” Fernández said. “We felt we did the hardest part of the leg, up the coast of Scotland, and managed to be in the lead there, but we just couldn’t hold Brunel on the tight reaching… They’ve been improving a lot on the last legs, but it was a surprise to see such a speed difference.”

Team AkzoNobel was third into Gothenburg, another strong podium finish for Simeon Tienpont’s team.

“I don’t think you can get any better racing than this in the sport of sailing,” he said. “It was intense racing in the most competitive fleet you can find in the world. Pretty stoked to have a podium. We pushed to be first but MAPFRE and Brunel did an unbelievable job and we had to let them go.”

Turn the Tide on Plastic had a strong leg, battling with the leading group from start to finish. In the end, Dee Caffari’s squad would take a fifth place finish, moving them to within one point of over-hauling Scallywag.

“We’ve been racing in sight of five boats for the entire leg,” Caffari said at the pontoon after finishing. “To have the racing that close right up until the finish is immense…

“We were ahead of AkzoNobel and Dongfeng at times but they put the afterburners on at the end and we couldn’t quite hold them. But we were really competitive and I’m very proud of my team.”

It was an uneventful, if disappointing leg for Charlie Enright’s Vestas 11th Hour Racing squad, who posted a sixth place finish.

“It was a tough leg and not our best performance by any means, but we have one more leg to end it on a high note,” Enright said. “We were pushing right until the end. It was our worst result with a sixth place, but the deltas were really close. We were battling with Brunel who ended up winning the leg and we were pushing hard until it was a foregone conclusion.”

David Witt’s Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag finished in seventh place, after falling behind the fleet on the first evening and never fully recovering into a competitive position.

“We made it pretty hard for ourselves being anchored in Cardiff while we watched the rest of the fleet sail away from us for 100 miles,” Witt said.

“But I’m really proud of the team and I know the boss is too. I’ve been involved in team sports all my life and I’ve never seen a group of people who keep rising and work harder when it starts to get hard. We’ve had our ups and downs but we’re going to do our best in the last leg.”

But all eyes will be on the top three boats for the start of the final leg as they battle for their positions on the podium for this edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. The results have never been closer and the pressure has never been higher.

“We need intensity, focus and to sail the best we can… that’s all we can do,” said Team Brunel navigator Andrew Cape when asked to describe how he will approach the final leg.

Leg 11 from Gothenburg to The Hague features a fly-by dogleg past Aarhus, Denmark, and starts at 1400 local time in Gothenburg (1200 UTC) on 21 June, 2018.

Volvo Ocean Race Leg 10 — Results

1. Team Brunel – Finished – 4 days, 5 hours, 12 minutes, 1 second

2. MAPFRE – Finished – 4 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes, 56 seconds

3. team AkzoNobel – 4 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes, 53 seconds

4. Dongfeng Race Team – 4 days, 5 hours, 45 minutes, 52 seconds

5. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 4 days, 6 hours, 02 minutes, 00 seconds

6. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 4 days, 6 hours, 26 minutes, 40 seconds

7. SHK / Scallywag – Racing – 4 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes, 03 seconds

Volvo Ocean Race Points Table after Leg 10

1. MAPFRE – 65 points

2. Team Brunel – 65 points

3. Dongfeng Race Team – 64 points *

4. team AkzoNobel – 53 points

5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 38 points

6. SHK / Scallywag – 30 points

7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 29 points

* One additional point will be awarded to the team with the best elapsed time at the conclusion of the race in The Hague. Currently, Dongfeng would win this point.

** Should there be a tie on the overall race leaderboard at the end of the offshore legs, the In-Port Race Series standings will be used to break the tie.

Current Volvo Ocean Race In-Port Race Series Points Table

1. MAPFRE – 56 points

2. Dongfeng Race Team – 49 points

3. Team Brunel – 41 points

4. team AkzoNobel – 39 points

5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 26 points

6. Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag – 21 points

7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 17 points

The post Brunel’s Late Charge Sets Up a Three-Way Tie For Finale appeared first on Sailing World.

With the win, Bekking’s Brunel is just three points off the lead, meaning the final two European legs will be more important than ever. Although Brunel sits in third place this morning, the Dutch entry is riding a wave of momentum.

Leg 9, from Newport to Cardiff, day 7 on board Brunel. Peter Burling at the helm. 25 May, 2018.

Since the team hit a low point at the conclusion of Leg 6 after arriving in Auckland with a sixth-place finish, Bekking and crew have posted a 1-2-1 scoreline, including important wins on the final two double-point scoring legs, to move from also-ran status on the leaderboard to holding down a firm grip on a podium position with an eye on the top spot.

“We’re very happy with the result – to beat the two red boats (Dongfeng and Mapfre) was the objective,” Bekking said after crossing the finish line. “Winning of course is nice, as well as to get the bonus point and then a nice fight to beat AkzoNobel in the end as well, so we’re a happy team.

“But the aim is to keep looking forward. We’ve closed the gap to Mapfre and Dongfeng and victory remains our main objective.”

To earn the leg win, Bekking had to fend off fellow Dutch skipper Simeon Tienpont’s team AkzoNobel, who had held a nominal lead of a few hundred meters just hours before the finish.

But in the strong currents and light winds of the Bristol Channel, Bekking and his crew found a way to claw back in front and then protected over the final miles to take the win by just 4 minutes and 05 seconds over team AkzoNobel.

Leg 9, from Newport to Cardiff, arrivals. 29 May, 2018.

For Tienpont’s AkzoNobel, Leg 9 will be long remembered for the amazing record-breaking effort the team made in setting a new standard for 24-hour distance run in the Volvo Ocean Race.

On Friday, in ideal conditions, the team AkzoNobel crew obliterated the previous race record set in a Volvo Ocean 70 by Ericsson 4 in 2008. The new mark is a 602.51 nautical mile, 24-hour run.

“This was an incredible race,” Tienpont said from on board at the finish line. “I’m unbelievably proud of the crew. We kept pushing all the way to the finish line and we’re happy with second place.

“We enjoyed setting a record that hopefully will be hard to beat. It’s been a leg full of emotions and we’re looking forward to the last two legs. We’ve done unbelievably well since Melbourne. From there onwards we’ve scored more points than Mapfre and Dongfeng. So the confidence is there and as a crew we’re enjoying it so much. We’ll just keep fighting and do what we did on this leg.”

Dongfeng Race Team skipper Charles Caudrelier has elevated his team to the top of the race leaderboard for the second time since the start of the race. With a sixth podium finish the most consistent team in the race controls its own destiny at the head of the fleet.

“It’s nice, but it’s a very small lead to Mapfre and now Brunel as well who are making a fantastic comeback,” Caudrelier said dockside after the finish. “It’s going to be interesting for fans to follow as the race is far from finished. The level is very even and it’s a big fight for every place… we would have preferred an easier finish.”

While Brunel has been ascendant on the last three legs and Dongfeng consistently among the leaders, MAPFRE roared out to a fast start in the opening legs but has struggled of late.

Even on the recent leg into Newport, which was scored a win, the Spanish team trailed for nearly all of the leg, making a miraculous comeback from fifth to first in the final 24 hours. The team will need to regain its early form if it is to make one more comeback and win the race.

“It hasn’t been an easy leg for us. It’s been painful from day one and we never could catch up,” said skipper Xabi Fernández. “But looking forward we feel confident. Hopefully we can start well and fight boat to boat over the next two legs.”

Scoring a fourth-place finish on the leg was Charlie Enright’s Vestas 11th Hour Racing. The team has prided itself on its podium finishes, but this leg marks its worst result across the finish line in the race.

However, having missed three crucial legs in the middle of the race, the team’s position on the overall leaderboard is all but locked in at fifth place.

“It was a disappointing leg from a results standpoint, but that doesn’t take away from what was a good crossing for the team,” Enright said. “We’ve overcome a lot more than just a bad result in this race and now we have two legs left to put our best foot forward and end on a good note.”

Volvo Ocean Race Projected Leaderboard after Leg 9

1. Dongfeng Race Team – 60 points
2. MAPFRE – 59 points
3. Team Brunel – 57 points
4. Team AkzoNobel – 48 points
5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing – 36 points
6. SHK / Scallywag – 29 points
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic – 26 points

The post Team Brunel Continues Late Charge to the VOR Podium appeared first on Sailing World.

The boats are (essentially) the same, the sails identical, and the boatspeed differences at the front of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet are now close enough to be compared in decimals and single-digit percentages. Those decimals add up over thousands of miles of a leg, and it is — as any Volvo crew will attest — the incremental gains that will ultimately decide the finish order when the fleet pulls into The Hague in July.

In this age of big data, much is known of the performance of the Volvo 65, its sails and the complex method of moding the boat as conditions change by the hour at sea. Today, the boat is a measurable machine laden with sensors. Performance is now highly predictable. What it is not predictable, however, are the humans that propel it through highs and lows, storms and calms and hours of sleep and caloric deprivation. Consequently, the sailors on AkzoNobel, with support from the analytic wizards at technology giant SAP, have embarked on a game-changing effort to quantify the human X-factor. After eight grueling legs, the team is up to their neck gaiters in biometric data and they’re now grasping how predictive biometric modeling will translate directly to speed on the racecourse.

Ryan West, AkzoNobel’s performance manager, says predictive modeling is the key, and the team is early yet into the field. “We already measure trim, hull speed, angle, wind, and all of that, constantly running it through models,” he says. “We debrief after every leg and try and get faster, but we’re missing a huge component in this fleet — what’s different? The crew.”

West and his counterparts at SAP have implemented a biometric measurement program with the sailors, each of them wearing at all times offshore a Garmin Forerunner watch with an optic heartrate sensor.

“The biggest challenge was finding a device that is wearable the entire time they’re offshore,” say West. They tried chest straps, which provided good data, but was not ideal for the sailors. A wearable wrist device was the solution. A custom app on the Forerunner records heart-rate data every second while on deck and when the sailor goes below the unit automatically uploads the data to an encased Raspberry Pi. The Internet of Things computes sleep, caloric burn and provides athlete-specific, real-time data to the sailors themselves. Think of it as a personal wellness dashboard.

After a leg finish, SAP developers extract the data for a deeper dive, allowing the team to eventually compare and overlay sailor data over yacht data. “We are able to find trends that have never been seen,” says West. “The first couple of legs, simply capturing the data was a huge milestone. As far as we know, no one had gotten as much quality data offshore. The boat is its own environment and the humans act differently to it. Now we can take the environment and better understand how it will affect the sailors — before it happens.”

During a 21-day leg they can collect more than 18,000 (averaged) data points, allowing West to extrapolate daily caloric burn and individual sleep patterns. “The sailors can burn as many as 6,000 calories per day, so the more we can do to help them eat more efficiently, we can keep them at their optimum,” says West.

Disruptive sleep patterns take a toll on a sailor’s efficiency too. It’s the mental drain and the fog of four-hour watch rotations that slow maneuvers and inhibit rational decision making. Not surprisingly, West’s biometric analytics has revealed new understandings about off-watch efficiencies and what’s effecting sleep. “A lot of it is environmental,” he says.

Brad Farrand, AkzoNobel’s bowman, oversees the system on board the raceboat, and he too has a better understanding of his own traits. “I’ve learned much more about how many calories I’m actually burning and how environmental things effect sleep. For example, some bunks have more daylight than others and some guys don’t mind the light during the middle of the day, but others do.”

There are six different bunks, he adds, and each is unique when it comes to the movement of the boat. Heel angle, light, and even temperature make a big difference, says Farrand, who finds more restorative sleep from different bunks in different phases of the race. Modeling bunk preference is another tool, says West, that could make a significant impact as the sailors transition through time zones during the course of a leg.

“We’re on the cusp of — by next race — where with predictive modeling in the weather briefing in pre-leg we could be able to apply a human effect side as well,” says West. “Predicting which areas are most stressful on the crew.”

This is where the data modelers at SAP are working their magic, he says. “The more predictive we get the better we can start to look forward down the race track, applying the weather model, what the conditions will be, how they affect the sailors and how can they better adapt.”

What’s next? Perhaps integrating neurological elements to predict fatigue before it sets in, monitoring glucose levels, nutrient timing, hydration, status and many more. “Just like the yachts today have sensors all over the place, and you can see trend lines,” says West, “we could interpret how decisions are made and their outcomes based on diet and sleep.”

The post Speed From the Heart appeared first on Sailing World.

Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 10 on board Brunel. Bouwe Bekking driving in a big sea state. 27 March, 2018.

On paper, the second Southern Ocean leg of the Volvo Ocean Race is 7,600 miles, the longest of the race by a lot. These are the difficult miles that push men, women and equipment to their breaking point. This classic and defining segment of the race can be fast and kind, but more often than not, it’s fast and brutal, the sort of leg that finds even the most hardened veterans and masochists clamoring for the exit door at Cape Horn. Such will be remembered of the 2018 edition, the one that claimed one life and stripped years off many others.

“The Southern Ocean has been ­especially tough this year,” wrote Simon Fisher, navigator and helmsman for Vestas 11th Hour Racing, hours before they passed the iconic landmark in the wake of Team Brunel on March 29, 10 days after leaving Auckland, New Zealand. “It has been more relentless and unforgiving than I can ever remember.”

Weighing on Fisher’s mind and casting a somber pall across the fleet was the unsettling death of Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag’s 48-year-old ­crewmember John Fisher, knocked overboard during an accidental jibe and declared lost at sea after an impossible search.

“In the past week, it feels as if we have been battered by storm after storm. And yet another squall is never far away,” said Simon Fisher. “As the clouds that bring the squalls roll by, we are hit by 35- to 40-knot gusts, not to mention a mixture of hail and snow. The novelty of making snowballs has long since worn off. This is sailing at its most extreme.”

The bitter cold, relentless speed from running with consecutive storms and lack of sleep following countless jibes against the race-imposed ice-exclusion zone had worn down everyone, added Fisher. Videos and photos transmitted from every boat, including Vestas, revealed the sunken eyes, blistered and frostbiting hands, wind-burned cheeks and the lethargic and calculated movements of the sailors.

“As we brace ourselves for the final few days of strong winds, Cape Horn cannot come soon enough,” closed Fisher. “We have endured many days of heavy weather, storms, squalls, snow, hail and freezing temperatures. Massive waves and howling winds, and all this in a fleet so close and so competitive that we are given no choice but to push to the limit 100 percent of the time. Rounding Cape Horn this time will be more satisfying than ever.”

As monumental as the rounding is for those who’ve done it, including Team Brunel’s Bouwe Bekking — his ninth — there was barely a moment for slaps on the back, a cigar and a nip of rum, for there were still 2,000 miles to go before the finish in Itajai, Brazil.

“The crew is very, very, very tired,” wrote Bekking. “Even though we are leading, there is no ‘hurray’ feeling on board. The loss of John is sitting way deeper than people like to admit. I think of him several times in an hour. It didn’t come easy this leg. As everybody knows, it was a windy one.”

Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 9 on board Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag. John Fisher winding the winch during a sail change. 26 March, 2018.

Only partway through the leg did the teams get a 24-hour respite from the hard racing and close battle being waged in the position reports. Crews seized the opportunity to mend and prepare their bodies and boats for one last punishing low that would propel them toward Cape Horn. Once the wind got cranking again, they were right back into it.

“We had some 40 to 45 knots, which is no fun. Actually, it is pure survival mode,” wrote Bekking on March 25, four days out from the Horn. “But still doing between 22 and top speeds of 39 knots, crazy. But you know the others don’t hold back either. Backing down now? No way. Anybody will do this. It is the way we sail.”

A day earlier, navigator Libby Greenhalgh confessed to “some ­trying times” on board Scallywag as they jibed against the ice gate. The Hong Kong/Australian entry was seemingly falling farther behind the fleet with every maneuver. Crash jibes weren’t helping their cause. “The motivation to push ourselves has to come from within the team, especially when you are short jibing and cannot immediately display the benefit from the boats around,” wrote Greenhalgh. “There is no one there, just us, and that middle of the ocean suddenly seems very far and very alone.”

Two days later, with the Southern Ocean in full noise, her words rang true. Fifteen minutes before sunrise, in 35 to 45 knots of wind and 15-foot boiling seas, the 65-footer reportedly surfed down a wave and then spun into an accidental jibe.

According to a team statement, John Fisher was transiting the cockpit, moving forward to tend to a headsail sheet when “the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat.” Because of his movement at the time, he was not tethered.

Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 12 on board MAPFRE, Antonio Cuervas-Mons warming up the glue, 30 March, 2018.

A Jonbuoy and horseshoe were deployed, but by the time the team had stowed headsails and motorsailed back to the MOB location, they were unable to find buoys nor Fisher. With a powerful storm barreling down on them and the British sailor’s chances of survival diminished, the searching ended and the mourning began.

As Scallywag rerouted to Chile, its competitors soldiered on toward Cape Horn with yet another low-pressure punch, with more crash jibes and broken bits and bones to write home about.

It was then Mapfre‘s turn, when the overall race leader revealed it’d been dealing with a compromised mainsail track, which was giving the team dire concerns. They’d effected a jury rig, and knowing the next failure was a dismasting, they dispatched a small shore team to the remote South American tip. Skipper Xabi Fernandez hadn’t anticipated their mainsail parting from luff to leech while en route, so Mapfre‘s anticipated pit stop before rounding the Horn proved to be a wise choice after all. Thirteen hours after suspending racing, with a bandaged mainsail, a reglued track and a critical repair to the boom performed, they were back on the racetrack, in slow pursuit of the front-runners. They too were happy to leave the Southern Ocean, with all its splendor and misery.

Proving, however, that one is never done until the docklines are secured, word came on March 30 that Vestas 11th Hour Racing, second around the Horn, dismasted approximately 100 miles southeast of the Falkland Islands. The crew was forced to cut away the broken mast to avoid damage to the hull and motored under its own power toward the islands. At press time, the team was motoring to Itajai, this time putting a few thousand hard miles on its Volvo Penta saildrive.

The post Why Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race is the Most Difficult appeared first on Sailing World.