With three boats virtually tied on points, the tension was palpable on the pontoons before the start from Gothenburg on Thursday 21st June. As a reminder, MAPFRE and Team Brunel have 65 points, Dongfeng Race Team, 64, but the red team is almost certain to pocket the bonus point for the best cumulative time over the entire race). This final 700 mile long leg - which promises to be windy - will therefore decide the winner of this edition!
Never in 45 years has the outcome of the race been so uncertain! Everyone was therefore concentrated on giving their best on this decisive stage.
"It's good for the race to see three teams in the same point. We're obviously a little nervous, but we're very excited, it's going to be very interesting before adding, about this final 700 mile leg. It's a format that I really like, like a Solitaire de Figaro leg, it's going to be a big battle, you have to have good speed, make the right choices, make the transitions well. At the finish, there'll be one happy team, the other two will be sad, but if there's a good first, a good second and a good third, there'll be no shame in finishing on the podium" said Charles Caudrelier, skipper of the Dongfeng Race Team.
For Team Brunel - which has won every race at the end of the Volvo Ocean Race - we were rather confident. " It's a fantastic way to end this race. We are on a good dynamic, I think we can win. If we go fast, I'm confident we can beat the two red boats." explained Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of the Dutch crew, which has recorded seven participations in the crewed round the world race with stopovers.
As for Xabi Fernandez, at the head of MAPFRE, he also displayed a fighting spirit: " We're in an incredible situation, with three boats tied, we know there's only one winner, we have a mission, to beat them."
The start was made in around fifteen knots west-north-west, with a Spanish team in too much of a hurry to get to the start and which was stealing the lead, thus forced to cross the line at the back of the pack.
At the front, Team AkzoNobel, assured of a fourth place finish in the Volvo Ocean Race, but determined to shine on its Dutch home turf in The Hague (like Team Brunel), took command of the fleet, with Dongfeng Race Team at the helm. Having got off to an excellent start, by far the best of the trio who are candidates for final victory, Charles Caudrelier's crew is dreaming between Gothenburg and The Hague of taking their first stage win and the Volvo Ocean Race, which would be a great first for China.
To do that, they will have to manage to avoid the pitfalls of a course which, according to Christian Dumard, race forecaster with the Great Circle company, promises to be very fast, with, once the passage marks are located firstly to the south-east of Norway (upwind), then ahead of Aaarhus in Denmark (downwind), a descent of the North Sea in strong north-westerly winds of up to 35-40 knots. " It's going to be a sprint, there are no big tactical options. However, there are going to be a lot of manoeuvres and sail changes, so the skippers and sailors are really going to have to anticipate these phases well, and think well in advance about the order of the sail changes and the mastheading to optimise the manoeuvre times. For me, it's a stage which will be played out in my mind. They're bound to have problems in the strong wind forecast, whoever has the ability to keep calm and the crew involved will make the difference."
