Volvo Ocean Race overall leaders Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing have taken a big strategic gamble on Leg 2 to achieve their ambition of sailing into their home port as stage victors.
Their British skipper Ian Walker is determined to follow Lewis Hamilton’s Formula One triumph in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
“If there is one leg for us to win, it’s this one,” he told a media conference before the fleet left Cape Town last Wednesday.
The 5,200 nautical mile trip from South Africa to Abu Dhabi is one of the toughest in the nine-month offshore marathon sailing event, however, and Walker’s crew have a tough task to emulate their narrow Leg 1 (Alicante, Spain to Cape Town) triumph.
Barring their way, is a possible cyclone in the Indian Ocean in three or four days and to add to Walker’s headaches, his one-design Volvo Ocean 65 boat has suffered some breakages, including a tear in his A3 sail and a snapped steering cable. Both have been since fixed.
They lie fourth behind Leg 2 pacesetters Team Brunel, some 10nm adrift of the Dutch team.
Their navigator Simon Fisher has responded to Abu Dhabi’s challenges by sailing far west of the rest of the seven-strong fleet in the Indian Ocean, gambling on the wind pressure there to be higher than their rivals have to the east.
“It is certainly nervous times for us right now,” said Walker, 44, who is gunning for his first Volvo Ocean Race victory at his third attempt as skipper. “Last night we were out of sight of everyone.”
