The returnees lead the field: Team Vestas is in the lead after the first night of the eighth and shortest leg of the twelfth Volvo Ocean Race, which started on Sunday. This is not a surprise, as the three leading boats have switched from attack to tactical mode for the remaining two legs. Leader Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has obviously decided to follow the course of Bouwe Bekking's second-placed Dutch team Brunel. However, Ian Walker's team has not completely lost sight of Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng crew, who are equal third in the overall standings.
At the start of the 647 nautical mile sprint from Lisbon to Lorient on the coast of Brittany, the fleet initially split into two groups as they chased along the west coast of Spain: Team Vestas, the women's team SCA and the Dongfeng Race Team, who were narrowly in the lead on Monday morning, will set a course close to the coast, while the remaining four boats will try their luck a little further out to sea. The two groups are fighting for every little advantage with varying degrees of success. Team Vestas led the field close to the coast on Monday morning with a nautical mile lead over SCA with skipper Sam Davies. She would like nothing more than to finally get rid of the stigma of being permanently last. Davies lives near Lorient and will do everything in her power to arrive in home waters with a respectable result. Behind SCA, Mapfre and Team Brunel were the first two boats in the group further out to sea.
Dongfeng was already lagging behind the group close to the coast - surprisingly at this early stage - by more than six nautical miles. The fact that not one boat reported back in the first 14 hours after the starting signal with the usual farewell and outlook report from on board clearly shows how much the teams are focussing on their tasks in the final phase of the race around the world. Team Abu Dhabi, for example, which leads Brunel and Dongfeng by six points, can only guard one of these two chasers, who could still challenge Walker and his men for victory in the classification, if the group splits. At the start of the stage, Walker obviously decided to shadow the more experienced and recently strong Team Brunel. With success for the time being, because Dongfeng stumbled. There were only 633 nautical miles to go to Lorient on Monday morning.
The Spanish team Mapfre had previously won the harbour race in Lisbon ahead of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, the American team Alvimedica and Team SCA. For Bekking's Team Brunel, fifth place in Lisbon was tantamount to a defeat, because at the end of the round-the-world race, the positions in the in-port classification will be used as a tiebreaker if there is a tie in the overall standings. However, Bekking benefited from the fact that Dongfeng, his direct rival for second place, performed even worse in this twelfth edition of the Ocean Race and did not finish higher than sixth. At the moment, it seems that Charles Caudrelier's high-flying team under the Chinese flag has been somewhat disenchanted.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
