It’s tight at the top in the Volvo Ocean Race as the spectacle hits Abu Dhabi

AQzzam finishes third, but there is all to play for.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing arrive in Abu Dhabi in third place from Leg 2. Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race

The same top three in Abu Dhabi as in Cape Town, albeit in different order. Twelve minutes separated the top two in Cape Town, and a gap of just 16 minutes in Abu Dhabi, including a lead change barely 90 minutes from the end.

The top three boats all are tied on the same number of points after two legs, already raising the possibility of relying on a tie-breaking in-port race to decide a final winner.

Had the organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race scripted the two legs and their finishes to highlight the competitive fruits of one-design sailing, they would have dismissed the current reality as outlandish.

It is tempting to think after Team Brunel’s second-leg win yesterday that an order of power has been set, that this is the hierarchy that will prevail over the remaining seven legs. The winners sailed side by side with Dongfeng Race Team for much of the leg, sprinting past them at the very end.

Yesterday apart, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam were right behind them, if not leading, throughout. Azzam were flawless in their first-leg win, but Dongfeng pushed them all the way. Brunel were a comfortable third.

But it is precisely because of the uniformity of the one-design fleet that no such predictions can be made, as well as the obvious fact that we are only two legs and a couple of months into a race that does not end until next summer. This leg, in fact, has shown precisely how up and down the race will be.

The leg was littered with lead changes, nearly 20 in all, with a couple right at the end. Team Mapfre led for a large part of the race. Who knows where Team Alvimedica, who had sailed impressively, might have finished had they not detoured and waited for over nine hours by the side of the stricken Team Vestas Wind, which ran aground?

The fate of Vestas Wind is a constant reminder of how swiftly and radically fortunes can change.

There will be more close finishes, and as Azzam skipper Ian Walker pointed out, they likely will involve more boats than the trio that sit atop the points standings at the moment.