Leg 3 of Volvo Ocean Race is expected to be another tight one

Race to Sanya, China is the shortest leg among the first six but will not be short of challenges, writes Osman Samiuddin in Abu Dhabi.

Team SCA, left, won Friday’s in-port race in Abu Dhabi ahead of Leg 3 to Sanya, China, which starts on Saturday. Team SCA and five other boats will leave Abu Dhabi at 2pm. Rick Tomlinson / Volvo OceanShow more

No leg of the Volvo Ocean Race is easy or straightforward or, of course, the same. That is pretty much the premise of the race.

The third leg of this year’s race, from Abu Dhabi to Sanya, China, which begins on Saturday, brings its own peculiarities. For one thing, just starting it might be a real problem.

Much of the world might love the sunshine and low breeze in the capital right now, but not so much the sailors. On Friday, for the in-port race, the winds were so low that the start had to be delayed by 100 minutes in a wait for better conditions.

Such low winds would not have prevented the start of the leg itself, but it is an odd, niggly leg in that way. At 4,670 nautical miles, it is the shortest of the first six legs, but even a cursory, untrained glance at the map and the route is enough to understand the complexities.

The start in getting out of the Gulf, as conditions yesterday reinforced, will be difficult. That initial portion of the leg, all the way up to Sri Lanka, is also unknown. During the last race, piracy threats disrupted both the incoming and outgoing legs of the Abu Dhabi stopover. The boats were shipped out to near the Maldives, from where they restarted the race to China.

Then the Straits of Malacca, which, given they are one of the world’s busiest shipping channels, provide another unparalleled example of the way sport and real life intersect in this race. The boats will have to negotiate routes around any number of big and small commercial ships in a way, for instance, Formula One cars do not need to navigate around taxis and rickshaws.

The home stretch to China, mostly upwind, is not one sailors look forward to. All told, expectations are for a 21- to 24-day leg.

The short story from this scene is to expect another tightly contested leg, and perhaps one in which the fleet stays bunched.

“The strength of the fleet is such, as we’ve seen with this past leg, that everybody has been in the lead at some stage,” said Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Team Brunel. Bekking’s boat is one of three tied for first place overall after two legs and winner of the second leg.

“This next leg might be the same. In the Auckland to Brazil leg there might be differences, but in these kinds of legs, the fleet will be really close.”

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam, tied with Brunel and Race Team Dongfeng, are also likely to be in the mix.

They have a change of personnel to incorporate, with the wizened veteran Neal McDonald, 51, replacing the injured Phil Harmer for this leg.

Home advantage can sometimes be a fickle concept in sport. In one as random as sailing, it is even more so. The fact that Azzam are familiar with the waters around here and have trained in them may not count for much when the leg starts.

“We have done a fair amount of sailing here,” said Ian Walker, the Azzam skipper. “I guess it helped us in the last race with our win in the in-port race. But everybody is already out training, so they’re learning about the venue very quickly and everybody does their research.”

Walker will know what Charles Caudrelier and his crew may be feeling right now.

For the third team in the trio at the top, Dongfeng, this is the homecoming leg, the one they want to win more than any other. Dongfeng are similar to Azzam in that the race is a platform for a broader goal, in their cases, for the growth of sailing in their countries. Caudrelier, a winner of the 2011/12 race aboard Groupama, admitted that there is an extra weight on them.

“It will be sad to make a bad result when you are in China,” he said, “especially after we have done so well in two first legs. For sure, if we finish fourth we will be disappointed because it is arriving in China. If there is one leg to win for us to win, it is this leg.”

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