The thick fog and light winds spoiled the beginning of the leg last Saturday in Abu Dhabi. Ahead of them, 4670 miles to Sanya (China) where “MAPFRE” hopes to be complete in about 22 or 25 days
Last Saturday morning, the city of Abu Dhabi dawn in the middle of a thick fog that presaged a start for leg 3 in the mist. Nothing was seen within 50 meters. Xabi Fernández, skipper of “MAPFRE” in this third leg of the Volvo Ocean Race already said in the dock: “There will be very little wind for the start, and fog means even less wind. We will have to be careful with the tide and the lack of wind”, he warned.
The Basque was confident that the fog would disappear but it didn’t completely. It seemed that it thinned towards the very end of the course set at the start, which the fleet sailed before heading out to sea, but it never cleared completely. It was an extremely slow race course, with only three knots of wind seven minutes before the start and during most of the time. The wind never got to more than six knots of speed, speed reached at 11h00 Spanish time, when the starting gun was fired in Abu Dhabi.
The crew members onboard “MAPFRE” were not far wrong there. André Fonseca, responsible for helming the boat at the start, had already noted two hours before the start of the leg that “for now, the forecast is of very little wind, so we will have to float a bit between now and getting out of channel. We’ll see what happens, but this start is going to be quite difficult”.
The home team, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, an expert on this water, led the fleet at each mark of the race course, passing the last mark on first place, followed by Dongfeng Race Team, Team SCA, MAPFRE, Team Brunel and Team Alvimedica.
Xabi Fernández: “we believe it will take between 22 and 25 days”
Ahead of them, the fleet of the Volvo Ocean Race has a total of 4670 miles and is very difficult to know precisely how many days of sailing will take. As Xabi Fernandez said, “is actually unpredictable, having a storm or not can accelerate the forecast two days up or down. It is difficult to say, but we believe it will take between 22 and 25 days, more or less”.
Once out of Abu Dhabi, the fleet will head north. “As soon as we begin to move there will be a little bit of wind, so it could be not as slow as we expected,” noted the Basque Xabi Fernández.
“Tonight we will have for a while about 15 knots, reaching the top of Hormuz, but in general there will be little wind,” said Spaniard bowman Ñeti Cuervas-Mons, referring to the first 24 hours of the leg.
The goal of “MAPFRE” in this third leg is to be on the podium.”The goal is to get on the podium. We will work hard to achieve it and I think we have all the conditions”, said Fonseca. The Brazilian was eager to start the leg: “I’m eager to be out in the water already. The truth is that it’s funny how the crew longs to be on shore when we are at sea, but then return to the water when ashore. We are lovers of the sea and we always want to return to sail and compete”.