{"id":112049,"date":"2018-01-12T09:42:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T09:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=112049"},"modified":"2018-01-12T10:27:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T10:27:29","slug":"no-stone-unturned-behind-scenes-dongfeng-race-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/features\/no-stone-unturned-behind-scenes-dongfeng-race-team-112049","title":{"rendered":"No stone unturned: behind the scenes with Dongfeng Race Team in the Volvo Ocean Race"},"content":"The 'Cape Doctor', the dry south-easterly breeze which blows onto Cape Town, was in full force for last night\u2019s arrivals as the MAPFRE stormed to first place, closely followed by the leading pack completing the podium for Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race.\r\n\r\nWith no danger of the breeze shutting down on the final approach to the South African city, the leg win was in the bag for the Spanish team of MAPFRE by the final 24 hours, Xabi Fernandez and crew having led ever since they made a critically perfectly timed gybe to the south-west on day 14 of Leg 2.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_111294\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 2. Arrivals from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez\/Volvo Ocean Race. 24 November, 2017[\/caption]\r\n\r\nEven second-placed rivals Dongfeng Race Team, who could have been forgiven for praying that MAPFRE might be slowed by the wind shadow often cast by Table Mountain and the tricksy local effects which can turn the final approach to Cape Town into an opportunity for chasing boats, wished the Spanish team nothing but fair winds to end what was a perfectly sailed leg.\r\n\r\n\u201cMAPFRE is far ahead of us and, even if I hope we can make a comeback at the tricky finishing line, I do not wish this terrible end to the leg on MAPFRE,\u201d Caudrelier blogged from the boat yesterday. \u201cXabi\u2019s team and my crew have had a fantastic race since the start but they made one less mistake and deserve this first place,\u201d he added.\r\n\r\nThe Spanish crew arrived into a packed V&A waterfront in Cape Town three hours ahead of Dongfeng after a fast 19-day Atlantic leg. \u201cIt's amazing, we're super-happy. We came here in one piece and in front of the others, we can't ask for more,\"\u00a0skipper Xabi Fern\u00e1ndez said moments after finishing.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is what we will see all the way around the world. Super-tight racing, everyone has good speed and small mistakes are very expensive. This time we were luck to do the least mistakes and that's why we won.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_111297\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 2. Arrivals from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Pedro Martinez\/Volvo Ocean Race. 24 November, 2017.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFor Blair Tuke, the ETNZ America\u2019s Cup winning sailor who is making his offshore racing debut in this Volvo Ocean Race, the 6,000-mile Atlantic leg was his longest race yet. \u201cI\u2019m stoked to be part of this awesome team,\u201d he said, grinning as he landed on the dock. \u201cThis was my first long leg and there were so many different aspects to it \u2013 it was really fast out of Lisbon, and then a great run across the South Atlantic which was pretty fast. So it\u2019s awesome to be here, great to get my first long leg under my belt, and stoked to be leading the race overall but there\u2019s a long, long way to go.\u201d\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=60_jJ7By1AU&t=6s\r\n\r\nRob Greenhalgh, by contrast, is part of a cohort of exceptionally experienced Volvo Ocean Race sailors on the squad that includes navigator Juan Vila, also on his fifth Volvo Ocean Race, while six-time veteran of the event Neal McDonald is the team\u2019s performance manager.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was still a bit of an unknown with the weather, even though you many only be 20 or 30 miles apart with different routings it\u2019s always a bit nerve-wracking in case the weather doesn't go quite to plan things can change. So we were a little bit nervous until we got through that final ridge, and into the south-easterly wind, but once we were into the south-easterly wind we were kind of home free,\u201d said Greenhalgh after finishing.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_111295\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 2. Arrivals from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Pedro Martinez\/Volvo Ocean Race. 24 November, 2017.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\u201cJuan [Vila] made great decisions, and the key decision was obviously hooking onto the front at the south-west corner of the St Helena High and not getting too close to the ridge like Dongfeng did, and that bumped us into the lead. Obviously we had less breeze than the guys behind for a while, but managed to hang in there.\r\n\r\n\u201cI think we\u2019re all very conscious of the fact that we\u2019ve only just begun and we\u2019ve got to keep pushing hard, because everyone\u2019s going to get better so we\u2019ve got to keep improving.\u201d\r\n\r\nDongfeng Race Team finished in second place, arriving under a spectacular Cape Town sunset as pink-tinged clouds swirled down from Table Mountain and fierce gusts swept Table Bay. The Chinese-backed team were in good spirits as they crossed the line, philosophical about their second place.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_111291\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 2. Arrivals from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Pedro Martinez\/Volvo Ocean Race. 24 November, 2017.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cI think the team did a fantastic job, we led the race 75 percent of the time before we made a big mistake,\u201d said Caudrelier, \u201cWe did so many complicated things to take the lead and we just did one stupid thing. We lost so much, but the team is amazing, and we pushed to come back with fantastic speed to get second place.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo it\u2019s a nice second place after what happened, of course, I think if we\u2019d decided to gybe a bit earlier we could have taken the lead, as we saw with MAPFRE, but that\u2019s the game, to make less mistakes and MAPFRE made one less than us. So well done to them, and well done to my team to come back because it was not easy.\u201d\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_111298\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"600\"]\"\" Leg 2. Arrivals from Lisbon to Cape Town. Photo by Ainhoa Sanchez\/Volvo Ocean Race. 24 November, 2017[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThird place was filled by Vestas 11th<\/sup> Hour Racing an hour later. Charlie Enright\u2019s crew have had a storming start to their Volvo Ocean Race, having also taken the leg one win. Some five hours behind was Team Brunel, who finished fourth \u2013 not the result Bouwe Bekking and crew will have been hoping for after their sixth in Leg 1.\r\n\r\nThe chasing pack of AkzoNobel, Turn the Tide on Plastic and Team Sui\/Scallywag are due in tonight, within two hours of each other as their Atlantic match race continues; Dee Caffari\u2019s Turn the Tide on Plastic and David Witt\u2019s Scallywag crew having been within eyesight or AIS range of each other for almost the entire 6,000 mile leg. The trio are separated by just four miles this morning with 180 miles to go.\r\n\r\n ","excerpt":{"rendered":"

A plume of spray smokes from the windward rudder of Turn the Tide on Plastic. The guest crew on board are whooping, giddy with the exhilaration of the Volvo 65 blistering along in a late summer breeze blowing warm off the Spanish coast. Skipper Dee Caffari glances over her shoulder, her smile visible to us from 65ft away, as she leads the fleet in the first pro-am race of the Volvo Ocean Race. Charles Caudrelier is not smiling. At the wheel of\u00a0Dongfeng, all he is focusing on are the few feet of churning white water between our bowsprit and the stern of Turn the Tide, trying for an overlap. It doesn\u2019t matter in the slightest if we get one \u2013 the pro-am race doesn\u2019t count towards anything, it\u2019s half an hour of reaching around the bay to give invited guests a tiny taste of what the VO65 can do. But it\u2019s still a race, of sorts. In a few days time Caudrelier will set off to try and win the Volvo Ocean Race with the Chinese-backed team (he\u2019s already won it once, with Cammas on Groupama); trying to switch off the competitive instinct at this point is like trying to turn off hunger. It\u2019s his second race as skipper, he\u2019s spent more four years of his life preparing the team for this point, and they have left nothing to chance. Caudrelier spots an opportunity to round inside Turn the Tide, overtakes, and moves into the lead. The guests get a turn to drive, Dongfeng takes the winners\u2019 gun, and the on board reporter sets up some souvenir photos. There is still no whooping or cheering from Caudrelier, Stu Bannatyne, the down to earth Kiwi watch captain, or the polite Chinese crew crewing the boat for the pro-am. Showmanship The pre-start razzmatazz of the VolvoOcean Race turns all the crews into dog and pony show players \u2013 a show that repeats 11 times in this edition. Some enjoy it, others may be grinning through gritted teeth. Caffari looks to relish the chance to talk about her crew\u2019s ecological message. David Witt, skipper of Team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag, jokes about using the race to lose weight. Caudrelier doesn\u2019t seem to be enjoying it much. He and his team are itching to get the real racing started. To get out of Alicante, where the pop-up team bases are rammed full of sailors, guests, and support staff attempting to work through a jam-packed schedule of media visits, final briefings and jobs lists in a sweltering unseasonal heat. As one of the biggest teams, Dongfeng\u2019s village base is even more of a hive than most, despite a separate glossy Dongfeng corporate base next door. There is no respite from the constant noise and no privacy \u2013 even the physio\u2019s massage couch is jammed between the beer fridge and the PR staff\u2019s desks. Along the dock shipping containers are lined with everything the team might conceivably need over nine months, labelled and collated in complex …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1571,"featured_media":112064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[207],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112049"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112079,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112049\/revisions\/112079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112049"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=112049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}