Cyclone warning for Volvo fleet, piracy threat kept at bay

A tropical storm was barring the way to Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s hopes of back-to-back victories in the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race when the fleet returned to the open seas on Wednesday.
There is also the risk of cyclone activity, according to race meteorologist Gonzalo Infante, on the second stage of 10 in total. It will take 22 to 28 days to complete, depending on conditions.
“We have just started the tropical cyclone season in the south Indian Ocean and it seems like we will have plenty of this activity for this leg,” he said.
Race organisers have attempted to mitigate the threat by drawing up a sailing exclusion zone leading up to the Seychelles, designed to steer the fleet clear of the storm.
Should a boat enter the zone, it will incur a points penalty.
They have also taken similar measures around the east African coast of the Indian Ocean to avoid a possible piracy attack.
However, the race management have decided against shipping the boats part of the way, as they did in 2011-12, for security reasons. Piracy in the region has decreased dramatically in the last three years, according to maritime safety experts.
The British skipper of the Emerati boat, Ian Walker, triumphed in the opening stage between Alicante, Spain and Cape Town by just 12 minutes from Chinese rivals, Dongfeng Race Team, on November 5.
He told a news conference on Tuesday that victory on the 6,125 nautical mile (nm) leg, from South Africa to the team’s home port of Abu Dhabi, would be the ideal way to cement his one-point advantage in the overall standings.
“If you asked me if there’s one leg I want to win, this is it,” he told reporters in a news conference. “Unfortunately, there's six other very good crews trying to stop us.”
Abu Dhabi are favourites to take the second leg, especially as they know the closing stretch through the Hormuz Straits better than any of the fleet.
They showed their superiority again at the weekend when they won the Cape Town in-port race that is part of a separate series.
Nobody needs a good result more than Spain’s Iker Martínez on MAPFRE. The 2004 Athens Olympics gold medallist was also ahead at this stage in the 2011-12 race but finished seventh and last in this edition on Nov. 7.
Martínez responded by replacing his navigator with the vastly experienced Frenchman Jean-Luc Nélias and also dropping the fleet’s most famous sailor, twice Vendée Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux, 49.
Rob Greenhalgh comes in for Desjoyeaux as watch leader. There is added incentive for Greenhalgh; his sister Libby is navigator on the all-women’s crew of Team SCA. She masterminded the passing manoeuvre of her team past MAPFRE in the final miles under Cape Town’s Table Mountain on Nov. 7.
This was one final humiliation that led to the replacement of Desjoyeaux.
The first boat to sail out of Cape Town in winds of up to 35 knots on Wednesday evening was Team Brunel, followed closely by MAPFRE and Team SCA.
Source: AFP