Volvo Ocean Race: Victory and record for MAPFRE on the first stage of the Leg Zero

The Leg Zero is the leg that replaces the traditional crew qualifying event of the Volvo Ocean Race. Composed of 4 races, it started on August 2nd with the Tour of the Isle of Wight, won by MAPFRE, who took advantage of the opportunity to improve the reference time.

Chloé Torterat Published on August 3, 2017

A first step for MAPFRE

The first leg of the Leg Zero (which replaces the Volvo Ocean Race qualifiers) took place on August 2nd with the Tour of the Isle of Wight. The first of the four legs was won by MAPFRE, led by skipper Xabi Fernández, who also broke the monohull record.

With 3 hours, 13 minutes and 55 seconds they beat Team Brunel by less than 2 minutes, after a battle in tough conditions. The top four - MAPFRE, Brunel, AkzoNobel and Dongfeng - have all, subject to ratification by the World Sailing Speed Record Council, beat the current reference time of 3 hours 30 minutes on the super-maxi monohull ICAP Maximus.

The boats will now gather in Gosport to prepare for the Rolex Fastnet Race, the second qualifying race of the "stage 0", which will start this Sunday, August 6th. For those who would like to admire the boats on the French coast, the fleet of Volvo Ocean 65s will reach Saint-Malo around Friday 11th August.

A pre-race to gauge the competition

Wednesday 2nd August 2017 marked the start of the "Leg Zero", the qualifying leg for the seven boats competing in the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-2018. In total, the crews will take part in four legs (1500 miles), distributed as follows:

- Around the Isle of Wight on 2nd August

- The Rolex Fastnet (400 boats entered) from August 6 to 9

- A dedicated route for the Volvo Ocean 65 between Plymouth and Saint-Malo from August 10th to 11th

- A second dedicated route between Saint-Malo and Lisbon from 13 to 16 August.

These four races replace the traditional compulsory qualification for competitors in the Volvo Ocean Race. But above all, it will be an opportunity for the seven boats to judge themselves after several months of preparation and to position themselves against the competition. Without affecting the final result, they will enable a ranking to be drawn up based on the cumulative performance of the four races.

The race scoring system will be as follows: the 1st earns 8 points, the 2nd earns 7 pts, the 3rd earns 6 pts, and so on until the 7th earns 2 pts.