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june 05, 2015 - Volvo Ocean Race
Volvo Ocean Race: 'Great to be back'
The toughest and most challenging episode of Chris Nicholson's long and illustrious career will come to a climax when, against all odds, he leads Team Vestas Wind out of Lisbon for the start of the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8 on Sunday (full story below).- Skipper Nicholson tells of the re-birth of a dream - 'Race title a long way from being decided,' says leaders’ skipper - Follow the Race weekend action here on our superb App LISBON, Portugal, June 5 – The toughest and most challenging episode of Chris Nicholson’s long and illustrious career will come to a climax when, against all odds, he leads Team Vestas Wind out of Lisbon for the start of the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8 on Sunday. On November 29 last year, his boat was left shattered after it crashed into a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean during Leg 2, and with it Nicholson’s dreams of winning the offshore sailing’s greatest prize at his fifth attempt. What followed has confounded many expert observers, who predicted that the Volvo Ocean 65 boat was a wreck, fit only to be cleared off the reef and humanely destroyed. Instead, title sponsors Vestas and their backers led by Dutch company Powerhouse, decided to set an incredibly ambitious target to re-build a major part of the boat into a one-design racing yacht capable of re-joining the start line for Legs 8 and 9. The work, including clearing all traces of debris of the boat from the reef, has been completed in four months – half the time it takes to build a new Volvo Ocean 65 – by the Persico boatyard in Bergamo, Italy. “It feels great to be back,” Nicholson, 45, told a press conference in Lisbon on Friday. “This is my fifth race and we talk about what a tough race it can be, but this has, for sure, been the toughest – not just for me, but for the entire team. “Everybody has persevered and got through all the hard times to be back here with a fully functioning boat that can be competitive in this race and also compete in the next round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race. We really made the most out of such a difficult situation.” He told reporters that the boat had emerged through its final trials in Lisbon this week with flying colours and competed well in pro-am races in the Portuguese capital. So what are Vestas Wind’s prospects for the final two legs to Lorient (France) and Gothenburg (Sweden) against their six rival boats in a fleet that has already circumnavigated the world? “We are some of the most competitive people that you’ll find on Vestas Wind – we’re there in the same class of boat as the others, we’ll play by the rules and we’ll play hard,” said Nicholson. The Team Vestas Wind crew re-joins a race intriguingly poised. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) lead by six points from both Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) and Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA). The latter were rocked midweek by a one-point penalty imposed by an independent, ISAF-appointed jury for sailing the wrong way into a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) during Leg 7 from Newport, Rhode Island to Lisbon. Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) and MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) suffered a similar fate for an identical rule breach and the all-women’s crew under Davies were also penalised another point for entering an exclusion zone during the same stage (see latest Scoreboard top). “We admit we made a mistake and we learned from it. Already we’re taking measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Davies. Walker made clear he is taking absolutely nothing for granted, although the crew suffered a recent bout of illness on board, which has sidelined Adil Khalid (UAE) for Leg 8, with Louis Sinclair (Antigua/Barbuda) replacing him. “There’s a lot of this race left. In offshore sailing, you can lose it going up a river at the end,” he said. “I’ve seen Admiral’s Cups lost in the dying seconds. We’re a long, long way from winning this race. When you start to think you’ve got it won, that’s when you start to lose. “I prefer not to even look at the scoreboard – these guys (his rival skippers) know they still have plenty of chance to beat us in this race.” Bekking is anticipating 'some of the toughest 12 to 24 hours' of the entire race during the stage, with an upwind 647-nautical mile ‘sprint’ anticipated. Team Alvimedica’s Charlie Enright (USA) is banking on again making use of their local knowledge, after pipping Dongfeng Race Team into third at the end of Leg 7. The Turkish/American boat used the waters off nearby Cascais as a pre-race training base and 30-year-old Enright knows the area better than most, although Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing also were situated here before last October’s Leg 1 departure from Spain. “The weather looks pretty uncertain for the departure at least,” he said. “Other teams have now had the advantage of sailing here at least once, but we’re hopeful our previous time here will help us.” For Caudrelier and half his French crew on board Dongfeng, it will be a ‘home leg’ to Lorient. “Apart from Sanya, it’s been the one we’d most like to win,” he said. “But it will be very tough and will be a great fight between us all.” Xabi Fernández (ESP), skipper for his fourth leg in place of Iker Martínez who has Olympic training commitments, predicted the same. “We’re not nervous, but it is certainly going to be windy,” he told reporters. Before Sunday’s departure (1400 local time/1300 UTC), the fleet will contest on Saturday the Lisbon race of an in-port series, which is also finely balanced (see Scoreboard). Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing lead by one point from Team Brunel in this in-shore contest, which could yet decide the overall trophy as a tie-breaker if the teams are level on points at the finish in Gothenburg.
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