Team Telefónica have won the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. The Spanish team were the first into Cape Town this weekend, followed later by CAMPER.
Iker Martínez said:
“It’s something that you only dream of. We’ve seen what can happen and we have achieved much more than we thought we could.”
The team finished at 2014 local time on Saturday, just as the sun was setting, in roaring conditions in Table Bay, sailing with a reefed mainsail in a confused sea with more than 40 knots of gusting wind. It was 21 days five hours 14 minutes and 25 seconds after they left Alicante on November 5 when they crossed the line and several more minutes before they could move into the harbour as cross-winds threatened to smash the state-of-the-art Volvo Open 70.
CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand leaped to second place in the overall standings, two points behind Leg 1 winners Team Telefónica, after negotiating 6,500 nautical miles of sailing that was relatively trouble free before the last few hours. They finally completed the leg at 12:48:04 local time on Sunday, 21 days 21 hours 48 minutes and four seconds after the start gun fired in Alicante back on November 5.
Nicholson the skipper said:
“That’s the roughest conditions I’ve been in in a Volvo Open 70. Normally, you’ve got somewhere left to go as in put another reef in, put a smaller jib on, but we were out. We were three reefs and a storm jib … we were starting to run out of options other than to turn around and run with it. And that is the last option.
“At the time, you are thinking it’s the worst day of your life but now we’re through it it makes you feel a little bit more robust for the next time those conditions crop up.”
He added:
“We are here in second and that’s a good result so we are happy with the points and the position, but we were all expecting to do better. We have had 20 days of playing catch up from an early mistake and we weren’t able to catch up. It was tough. It was different from any other first leg I have done before. The weather just wasn’t the same. We are here and we are in good shape.”
Three of the boats are being shipped to Cape Town after being forced to retire from Leg 1, but all are hopeful of making the start line for the second in-port race on December 10.
PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG face the biggest struggle after dismasting on Monday, just when they were running neck and neck with Telefónica.
Telefónica top the leaderboard with 31 points and they will be followed by CAMPER on 29 assuming they come in unscathed on Sunday. Groupama will have a total of 22 once they finish.
The three boats who had to retire form the leg – Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, PUMA and Team Sanya – score no points for this leg, leaving them on 6 points, 5 and 3 respectively.
