In gusty, offshore winds, the six teams tackled the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race off Alicante yesterday. There were reportedly around 60,000 spectators when Crown Prince Felipe fired the starting gun. First there were two laps of the bay before the small fleet was allowed to set off on the 6,500-mile journey to South Africa. It became clear how wet these boats sail, even in shallow water, and how hard the small crews have to work despite all the automation in order to keep their vehicles running at the limit.
The omnipresent cameras ruthlessly revealed the problems and issues that the crew have to contend with on short courses. Sometimes it was a bitchy gennaker, sometimes a line wobble, sometimes a botched rounding of a buoy. "Wow, what a start," said Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker. "That was the most chaotic 40 minutes of sailing I've ever experienced. Six teams with only 10 sailors having to pedal these 70-foot boats round a small course in force 6 winds ..."
The New Zealanders on "Camper with Emirates Team New Zealand" were able to do this best, finishing ahead of "Puma Ocean Racing" and the Spaniards from "Team Telefonica" as they sailed out of the Bay of Alicante. Beforehand, the VIP guests, who sailed on all the boats, had to jump overboard for the cameras. French football star Zinedine Zidane did the same, dropping backwards into the water from the stern of the "Azzam", the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing boat.
Things didn't go so well at the start for Franck Cammas and "Groupama 4", who collided with "Puma" before the start and were penalised for it. However, this didn't seem to matter much, as the French riders were just ahead of "Telefonica" in the night after the field had passed Cartagena. Behind them were "Camper" and "Puma". Bringing up the rear was the Chinese "Team Sanya", which is travelling on a ship of the penultimate generation.
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