“For Wolf and Black its one hell of a baptism, and for our team, the big challenge of this Volvo Ocean Race”. Dongfeng skipper Charles Caudrelier sent his first report from onboard Dongfeng on Leg 5 to Itajai, Brazil:
Credit : S Greenfield
The first miles of this leg were truly magnificent.
Sailing along the New Zealand coast is exceptionally beautiful and interesting.
The start of this leg confirmed that the [performance] level of this race doesn’t stop increasing, and its more and more homogenous across the fleet.
There were at least 5 changes of leader in the first 24 hours and the smallest of errors were very expensive. A wrong sail choice when we were sailing down the coast cost us some precious miles, and pinned us back in an unfavourable position for the last 24 hours. But looking ahead at what is waiting for us before Cape Horn, this deficit is negligible and the next 10 days of racing will be full of traps and speed races where sail choices will be complicated, yet fundamental to the leaderboard. In certain conditions a sail change is sometimes impossible and we have to really slow down to do it. A bad sail choice can quickly cost a hundred miles.
For Dongfeng this leg will be tough, its in these difficult conditions and strong winds that we feel the lack of experience of our Chinese sailors. Even if they are showing remarkable bravery, its an extra pressure on all of us, and notably on me as skipper. I’m responsible for them in the bad weather and I have to judge all the time what we are capable of doing or not [in terms of safety]. In previous legs we had some margin for error, but in the south there are some errors we simply can’t commit. We have trained in some bad weather, but they have never experienced more than 24 hours of rough racing conditions. And in front of us are 4,500 miles of racing to Cape Horn in Southern Ocean storms, and we have to try to keep the same pace as the seasoned sailors and highly experienced teams for the next 10 days.
from Dongfeng
