VOLVO RACE: ‘Team Vestas Wind’ shore crew chief Neil Cox breathed a huge sigh of relief as his boat was successfully returned to the water on May 30 for her first sail since grounding on an Indian Ocean reef last November.

“It’s no longer a boat building race,” he said, sporting the biggest smile in Lisbon. “We’re back in a boat race.”

The battle to return Team Vestas Wind to the Volvo Ocean Race has been one of the most absorbing stories of the entire nine month marathon event – and one of the most remarkable in its 41 year history.

After crashing onto a reef near the Cargados Carajos Shoals on November 29 during Leg 2, and damaging huge sections of the hull, many observers expected the team to call quits there and then on the campaign.

But the Danish based, global wind energy company Vestas, and its backers, including Powerhouse, were determined to salvage what they could. So they set a highly ambitious target of returning to the Volvo Ocean Race for Legs 8 and 9.

That involved recovering the boat as intact as possible from the reef and rebuilding the shattered Volvo Ocean 65 in four months; half the time it normally takes to construct a one design Volvo boat.

Part one was successfully completed when Team Vestas Wind made a moonlit arrival in the Portuguese capital. Part two was her first sail from Lisbon to Cascais and back on Saturday, May 30.

Mr Cox, skipper Chris Nicholson and the rest of the Team Vestas Wind crew, had the answer they wanted in the kind of testing conditions they will face during Leg 8 from Lisbon to Lorient, France: 25 knots of breeze with the boat’s canting keel bulb almost lifted out of the water.

Afterwards, Mr Cox was delighted to see how the boat had fared. “On Friday, getting the boat in the water was a huge thing in the sense that it was a milestone,” he explained.

“But I knew that all we had was a boat in the water. Now, we needed to sail it. The nervousness and anticipation around being fit for purpose focused on today – Saturday.”

Mr Cox and the rest of the team have paid fulsome tribute to the workers of the Italian Persico boatyard, who toiled night and day to put Team Vestas Wind with the other six boats on the Lisbon start line.

On June 6, Team Vestas Wind will rejoin the Volvo Ocean Race when she competes in the Lisbon In-Port Race, before taking on the 647nm Leg 8 to Lorient starting the following day.

via Boating Business – Volvo Ocean Race: Vestas Wind returns.

Paralympic Sailing back for Tokyo 2020?

03 Jun 2015

Helena Lucas took Gold in the 2.4mR at the London Olympics – photo: Helena Lucas/RYA

PARALYMPICS: The International Sailing Federation (ISAF) has been working with the various National Sailing Organisations, to get sailing reinstated in the Paralympic Games.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) decided on February 3, 2015, not to include sailing on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games sports programme.

The decision brought universal condemnation from sailors around the world, with Geoff Holt playing a leading part in demanding the reinstatement of sailing in the Paralympic Games as soon as possible.

The ISAF has reconstituted the Disabled Sailing Committee (DSC) by naming Betsy Alison (USA) as the new chairman and introducing five new DSC members from China, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and David Staley from Australia, as well as applying for IPC membership.

Paralympic class sailing is included in the ISAF Sailing World Cup and ISAF has introduced prize money and broadcast coverage to ensure alignment with the Olympic disciplines and to promote disabled sailing.

On the back of formally taking over the management of disabled sailing, ISAF has made the decision to press the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to add disabled sailing to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games – a decision which Yachting Australia and its Australian Sailing Team strongly support.

See full ISAF statement (1 June 2015): sailing.org/news/40196.php

via Boating Business – Paralympic Sailing back for Tokyo 2020?.

Note to editors: This version updates our earlier release with the latest information on the start of Leg 8 after the fleet left Lisbon (full story below).

– Leg 8 offers unique challenges for all of the fleet

– Team Brunel lead boats out of Lisbon after breeze fills in

– Follow our upgraded live coverage for final legs

LISBON, Portugal, June 7 – Overall Volvo Ocean Race leaders, Ian Walker (GBR) and his seven Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing crewmates, left Lisbon for Leg 8 to Lorient, France, on Sunday with their eyes glued on the weather forecast – and the progress of their two closest rivals.

The penultimate 647-nautical mile (nm) stage is the shortest of the nine-month race by some way, but no less challenging for that.

Walker summed up: “There are light winds chasing up the Portuguese coast, but by the time we get to Cape Finisterre, it should be a dead beat to Lorient (France), and probably quite windy, over 30 knots.”

He is banking on plenty of upwind sailing. “It’ll be interesting as we haven’t had a lot of upwind in this race. We don’t really know what the pecking order is in these conditions, so it could be a very different leg from the others.”

The fleet, restored to seven boats again after the return of Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) in Lisbon, following the rebuild from the collision with a reef in Leg 2, should take three to four days to reach Lorient on the Brittany coast.

In-form MAPFRE made the early pace on Sunday at the start of Leg 8 (1400 local time/1300 UTC), only to be relegated to second place by Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) as the fleet left the final mark behind.

Conditions in the Tagus River proved to be extremely challenging as the fleet attempted to deal with the tough, near windless conditions, couple with a very strong tide.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, however, were towards the back of the pack, not quite the start that Walker and his crew would have wanted.

The race is intriguingly poised with the Emirati boat, on paper, able to clinch overall victory if results go their way when the boats arrive after around four days of sailing.

However, he brushed aside all premature talk of that prospect at the pre-leg press conference on Friday.

“There’s a lot of this race left. In offshore sailing, you can lose it going up a river at the end,” he said.

“I’ve seen Admiral’s Cups lost in the dying seconds. We’re a long, long way from winning this race. When you start to think you’ve got it won, that’s when you start to lose.

“I prefer not to even look at the scoreboard – these guys (his rival skippers) know they still have plenty of chance to beat us in this race.”

It is not just Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA), who will want to upset Walker’s bid to claim the trophy.

MAPFRE (Xabi Fernández/ESP) are currently in red-hot form. They were narrowly pipped at the end of Leg 7 into Lisbon by Team Brunel, but bounced back with a paper-thin, in-port race victory here on Saturday at the expense of Walker’s boat.

Their cause is boosted by a desire to underline their credentials as one of the classiest crews in the fleet, after two separate brushes with the independent, international jury following rule breaches, which have cost them a total of three points.

Similarly, Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA) are improving leg on leg, and have garnered two podium places in the last 10 days: third in Leg 7 and the same position in the in-port race.

They spent much of their pre-race build-up based in Lisbon, training in the Tagus River and nearby Cascais and were hoping to make that local know-how pay in the early stages of the leg.

Team Vestas Wind are simply delighted to be back in the mix again, after climbing their own Everest to repair their shattered boat in time to re-join the fleet for the final two legs.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) know that the last two, sprint, coastal legs offer them their best chance of upsetting the established order of dominance.

They too have improved leg after leg, but that progress has yet to be rewarded on the scoreboard. Davies, whose home is near Lorient, would love nothing better than to claim their best results at the climax of the 12th edition.

“It’s a shorter leg, a sprint, which is a little bit different. We know that we can stay with the group – we’ve been in the lead after three or four days in other legs,” she said in a pre-leg interview.

“We have a good chance. These last two legs are the ones that stay in everyone’s memory at the end of the race.”

The fleet is expected to reach Lorient early on Thursday (June 11). They will have a short maintenance period there before setting off for the final leg to Gothenburg, via a pit-stop in The Hague, on Tuesday, June 16.

The event finishes with an in-port race in Gothenburg on June 27. In all, the boats will have covered 38,739nm and visited 11 ports and every continent.

Current latest standings (low points wins, In-Port Race Series splits ties): 1) Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 16 pts, 2) Team Brunel (Netherlands) 22, 3) Dongfeng Race Team (China) 22, 4) Team Alvimedica (Turkey/U.S.) 27, 5) MAPFRE (Spain) 27, 6) Team SCA (Sweden) 43, 7) Team Vestas Wind (Denmark) 52.

via UPDATE: Now for something completely different| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) found themselves leading the fleet after a night of thunderstorms and fluctuations as the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8 entered the first full day in the Atlantic on Monday (full story below).

– All-women’s crew establish 5nm advantage early on Leg 8

– Team Alvimedica make blog plea on World Oceans Day

– Follow the race twice a day with Inside Track

LISBON, Portugal, June 8 – Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) found themselves leading the fleet after a night of thunderstorms and fluctuations as the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8 entered the first full day in the Atlantic on Monday.

The first all-women’s crew to enter offshore sailing’s toughest contest for 12 years have improved leg on leg since the start of the race in October last year, but their finishing positions have not reflected that so far.

However, skipper Sam Davies and her team have always eyed the shorter final legs in Europe as their best chance to shine against their male counterparts, and so far on the 647-nautical mile (nm) stage from Lisbon to Lorient, France, they have sailed impeccably.

There is still a long way to go on a leg that is expected to conclude in Brittany in the early hours of Thursday, but the women were certainly enjoying the unaccustomed feeling of being at the head of the competition on Monday.

At the 0645 UTC position report, Team SCA led by 5.5nm from overall race leaders Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker), having taken the route nearest to the coast of Portugal, where the wind was at its strongest (see panel above).

Overnight leaders Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) were caught in a large thunderstorm around 0500 UTC and dropped from first to fifth.

They will be delighted with their progress so far, however, showing good boat speed despite some six months out of the race while their boat was re-built following a collision with a reef in November on Leg 2.

Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED), who need to beat Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing to close their six-point deficit on them at the head of the standings, were tucked in fourth place while Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) were last placed, 8nm further astern.

They suffered a small tear in their Code Zero sail when it caught on the spreaders. The crew have successfully repaired it.

The Chinese boat also needs to finish ahead of Azzam to boost their chances of overall victory in the final port of Gothenburg.

Meanwhile, Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA) were placed sixth, but still comfortably in the main pack behind Team SCA.

The Turkish/American team’s skipper has issued a joint blog with Ocean Conservancy CEO, Andreas Merkl, to mark World Oceans Day on Monday.

The blog will be available from 1100 UTC on the team’s website. Ocean Conservancy is one of the world’s leading advocates for ocean health.

Enright is an ambassador for 11th Hour Racing, a programme of The Schmidt Family Foundation, which establishes strategic partnerships within the sailing and marine communities to promote collaborative systemic change for the health of our coastal, offshore, and freshwater environments.

He and Merkl wrote: “The ocean provides much of the food our global population consumes, along with the air it breathes and the waters that nourish it.

“We owe this miraculous and marvellous system all we can muster to protect it and its inhabitants. Science has shown us where a large majority of the plastic waste is coming from and current research is showing us what we can do to stem the tide of plastics entering the ocean.

“Let’s make sure that future Volvo Ocean Races do not encounter the vast amounts of plastics that the 2014-15 Race has observed. Let’s focus our efforts on solving this global problem – together.”

via Team SCA set the pace for Lorient| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

LISBON, Portugal, Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, experienced life in the fast lane on Friday – on water (full story below).

LISBON, Portugal, Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, experienced life in the fast lane on Friday – on water.

The heiress to the throne took the helm in Lisbon of the all-women’s boat of Team SCA during a practice ahead of Sunday’s eighth leg of the round-the-world, Volvo Ocean Race.

She certainly enjoyed the experience in perfect sailing conditions, yelling to reporters at one stage: “I love it – we’ve got wind!”

Team SCA, the race’s first female crew to contest the event in 12 years, have two more legs to negotiate before the finish in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 27.

The Princess’s family are already well acquainted with offshore sailing’s toughest challenge. Her younger brother, Prince Carl Philip, visited the same crew at the start of the nine-month race back in October.

And he went one better than his big sister, being hoisted to the top of the 30-metre (100-foot) mast on another boat to take a ‘selfie’ photo (see above), which was reproduced in media all around the world.

via Princess at the helm| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Spanish boat MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) won their second Volvo Ocean Race in-port race running on Saturday, but only with two metres to spare after a thrilling contest in the Portuguese sun (full story below).

LISBON, Portugal, June 6 – Spanish boat MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) won their second Volvo Ocean Race in-port race running on Saturday, but only with two metres to spare after a thrilling contest in the Portuguese sun.

Helmed by skipper Iker Martínez, who needed all his feted match-racing skills, MAPFRE edged past Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) in a sprint to the finish line as they gybed together at exactly the same time.

At one stage, it looked as if the Spanish boat would take a penalty for blocking the Emirati boat’s path, but former 2004 Olympic champion, Martínez, judged the final manouevre to perfection.

The win, one second ahead, moves the Spaniards back into an outside chance of a podium finish in the series after winning the previous in-port race in Newport, Rhode Island, last month (see Scoreboard).

However, beaten skipper Ian Walker of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, will not be disappointed for long. His crew’s second place leaves them well clear in the overall in-port standings, with eight of the 10 races completed.

Their closest rivals, Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED), struggled for much of the course, which was cut from six to five legs by the Race Committee, due to decreasing winds on the tidal Tagus River.

For so long, MAPFRE had looked to have the race safely in their pockets.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) led the seven-strong fleet across the line, only to be penalised for starting too early (OCS – on course side).

The unlucky all-women’s crew, who later battled back heroically to take fourth place, were forced to turn back against the tide to re-cross the line, losing dozens of metres to their rivals.

From then, MAPFRE looked in complete control, taking a 400-metre lead at the third mark, but just when it appeared to be a done deal, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing stormed back in stronger wind on Leg 4 and briefly snatched the lead from them.

Undaunted, Martínez slipped his boat across the Emirati yacht in a grandstand finish to take the gun.

Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA), who, pre-race, had trained in nearby Cascais, used their local knowledge for a solid third-place podium spot, but the drama was by no means over.

Team SCA and Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) had a near copy of the MAPFRE/Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing showdown, both approaching the finish within metres of each other.

Vestas Wind, however, was then, unfortunately, snagged on the finish mark and forced to complete a turn and re-cross the line allowing Team Brunel and a disappointed Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) to pass and leave them trailing in the seventh and final position.

Team Vestas Wind, whose crew member Nicolai Sehested (DEN) was left stranded on the mark as he tried to free the boat, were returning after a six-month absence from the race having grounded on an Indian Ocean reef during Leg 2, necessitating a complete boat rebuild.

Sunday (1400 local time/1300 UTC)  will see the start of Leg 8, a 647-nautical mile stage to Lorient. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing begin with a six-point overall advantage over both Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team.

Lisbon In-Port Race results

1. MAPFRE 14:59:39 – 1pt

2. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 14:59:40 – 2pts

3. Team Alvimedica 15:05:07 – 3pts

4. Team SCA 15:08:38 – 4pts

5. Team Brunel 15:09:44 – 5pts

6. Dongfeng Race Team 15:13:07 – 6pts

7. Team Vestas Wind 15:15:14 – 7pts

In-Port Race Overall standings

1. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing – 21pts

2. Team Brunel – 25pts

3. Team SCA – 28pts

4. Team Alvimedica – 31pts

5. MAPFRE – 32pts

6. Dongfeng Race Team- 33pts

7. Team Vestas Wind – 59pts

via MAPFRE win showdown in the sun| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

The toughest and most challenging episode of Chris Nicholson’s long and illustrious career will come to a climax when, against all odds, he leads Team Vestas Wind out of Lisbon for the start of the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8 on Sunday (full story below).

– Skipper Nicholson tells of the re-birth of a dream

– ‘Race title a long way from being decided,’ says leaders’ skipper

– Follow the Race weekend action here on our superb App

LISBON, Portugal, June 5 – The toughest and most challenging episode of Chris Nicholson’s long and illustrious career will come to a climax when, against all odds, he leads Team Vestas Wind out of Lisbon for the start of the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8 on Sunday.

On November 29 last year, his boat was left shattered after it crashed into a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean during Leg 2, and with it Nicholson’s dreams of winning the offshore sailing’s greatest prize at his fifth attempt.

What followed has confounded many expert observers, who predicted that the Volvo Ocean 65 boat was a wreck, fit only to be cleared off the reef and humanely destroyed.

Instead, title sponsors Vestas and their backers led by Dutch company Powerhouse, decided to set an incredibly ambitious target to re-build a major part of the boat into a one-design racing yacht capable of re-joining the start line for Legs 8 and 9.

The work, including clearing all traces of debris of the boat from the reef, has been completed in four months – half the time it takes to build a new Volvo Ocean 65 – by the Persico boatyard in Bergamo, Italy.

“It feels great to be back,” Nicholson, 45, told a press conference in Lisbon on Friday. “This is my fifth race and we talk about what a tough race it can be, but this has, for sure, been the toughest – not just for me, but for the entire team.

“Everybody has persevered and got through all the hard times to be back here with a fully functioning boat that can be competitive in this race and also compete in the next round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race. We really made the most out of such a difficult situation.”

He told reporters that the boat had emerged through its final trials in Lisbon this week with flying colours and competed well in pro-am races in the Portuguese capital.

So what are Vestas Wind’s prospects for the final two legs to Lorient (France) and Gothenburg (Sweden) against their six rival boats in a fleet that has already circumnavigated the world?

“We are some of the most competitive people that you’ll find on Vestas Wind – we’re there in the same class of boat as the others, we’ll play by the rules and we’ll play hard,” said Nicholson.

The Team Vestas Wind crew re-joins a race intriguingly poised.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) lead by six points from both Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) and Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA).

The latter were rocked midweek by a one-point penalty imposed by an independent, ISAF-appointed jury for sailing the wrong way into a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) during Leg 7 from Newport, Rhode Island to Lisbon.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) and MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) suffered a similar fate for an identical rule breach and the all-women’s crew under Davies were also penalised another point for entering an exclusion zone during the same stage (see latest Scoreboard top).

“We admit we made a mistake and we learned from it. Already we’re taking measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Davies.

Walker made clear he is taking absolutely nothing for granted, although the crew suffered a recent bout of illness on board, which has sidelined Adil Khalid (UAE) for Leg 8, with Louis Sinclair (Antigua/Barbuda) replacing him.

“There’s a lot of this race left. In offshore sailing, you can lose it going up a river at the end,” he said.

“I’ve seen Admiral’s Cups lost in the dying seconds. We’re a long, long way from winning this race. When you start to think you’ve got it won, that’s when you start to lose.

via ‘Great to be back’| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

An independent ISAF jury’s decision to impose a penalty point on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s closest rivals for the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15 title could, paradoxically, leave Ian Walker’s crew with an unwanted headache for the final two legs (full story below).

– Jury decision gives added headache to Walker

– Who will cover whom, asks skipper Caudrelier

– Follow the action all the way on our fabulous App

LISBON, Portugal, June 4 – An independent ISAF jury’s decision to impose a penalty point on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s closest rivals for the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15 title could, paradoxically, leave Ian Walker’s crew with an unwanted headache for the final two legs.

The Emirati boat’s skipper had previously conceded that his tactics for the closing legs, having opened up a formidable six-point advantage, would be to ‘cover’ Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA).

That strategy worked – just – in Leg 7 after the Chinese slipped back in the final 100 or so nautical miles (nm), allowing both MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) and Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA) to relegate them to fourth, ahead of Walker’s fifth place.

Unfortunately for Caudrelier and his team, they had committed an ‘honest mistake’ earlier in the 2,800nm stage by sailing briefly the wrong way into a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) and were duly penalised a point for the error on Wednesday by the jury.

MAPFRE and Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) were similarly dealt with in the hearing and to add salt to the Swedish all-women crew’s wounds, they lost an additional point for also drifting into an exclusion zone in the same leg.

In both Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE’s cases, the navigational blips cost them a place in the overall standings with just Legs 8 and 9 to Lorient (France) and Gothenburg (Sweden) to negotiate.

Caudrelier now finds himself behind Leg 7 winners Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) in third position, although both lie on 22 points. The Dutch boat has the edge, courtesy of a better in-port race series record before the race closes on June 27.

Similarly, MAPFRE find themselves now trailing fourth-placed Team Alvimedica for the same reason, although both have 27 points.

Anyone thinking that Walker and co will consequently sleep that much better on the eve of Sunday’s (June 7) Leg 8 departure, may have pause for thought, however.

The Briton will no longer have just one boat to ‘cover’.

He needs to keep a very close eye on both Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team and with Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) now back in a restored seven-strong fleet, there are several permutations that could yet see Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing miss out on the grand prize.

Walker sees things pretty simply: “We’ve got to finish in the top three or top four – twice – or just beat them (Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team),” he said.

Certainly, Caudrelier was quick to see the silver lining in Wednesday’s jury decision.

“We have to look forward, what’s done is done,” he said. “We won Leg 6, and we led for a good part of this last one – that gives us a lot of confidence in our performance despite the final points of this last leg not being as we would prefer.

“Anything can still happen to Abu Dhabi on these next two legs, so we haven’t lost sight of the chance of beating them.

“Of course, now Team Brunel are also in the picture, which perhaps makes it just as complicated for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing as it does for us. Who will cover whom?”

Sunday’s absorbing finale, part one, will be prefaced on Saturday (1400 local time/1300 UTC) by the Lisbon in-port race, the eighth act of a 10-part series that could yet still split teams in Gothenburg as the final tie-breaker (see Scoreboard above).

The seven teams then set out for the ‘mere’ 647nm which divide Lisbon and Lorient in Brittany, France. The trip should take just three or, tops, four days to sail, but the Atlantic sprint promises to be totally absorbing.

Wednesday’s jury verdict has not changed that one iota, and as Team Brunel’s highly experienced navigator, Andrew Cape (AUS), summed up: “One mistake, one broken jib sheet, and you could be last.”

via The plot thickens| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Three boats in the Volvo Ocean Race received point penalties for Leg 7 sailing rule infringements from the independent ISAF-appointed jury sitting in Lisbon on Wednesday (full story below).

– Team SCA, Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE pay for sailing rules mistakes

– Decisions leave Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing leading by six points

– Still all to sail for in the final two legs

LISBON, Portugal, June 3 – Three boats in the Volvo Ocean Race received point penalties for Leg 7 sailing rule infringements from the independent ISAF-appointed jury sitting in Lisbon on Wednesday.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR), Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) and MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) all admitted sailing the wrong way in Traffic Separation Schemes (TSS) and were each penalised a point to be added to their overall total in this low-scoring event.

Additionally, Team SCA were given an additional penalty point for sailing into an exclusion zone (see Noticeboard for full details of all infringements).

The decisions mean that Dongfeng Race Team drop a further point behind overall race leaders, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR), Charles Caudrelier’s crew trailing now by six points with two legs to go.

The Chinese-backed team are now level on 22 points with Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) – the Dutch crew officially ranked second because of their superior record in the in-port series, which breaks ties.

MAPFRE drop back to 27 points, level with Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA), but the Turkish/American team move up to fourth courtesy of their better in-port record (see panel above).

All three teams admitted their infringements in the hearing, but said in mitigation that there had been confusion over how clearly the TSS zones had been marked and the angle the boats were allowed to sail within them.

“This gave us no advantage, it was an honest mistake,” Team SCA skipper, Sam Davies, told the jury.

“There was no shipping in the vicinity at the time, so no safety issue.”

The jury was earlier given evidence from Race Director, Jack Lloyd, who said that the offences took place early in the 2,800-nautical mile (nm) leg from Newport, Rhode Island, to Lisbon, which started on May 17.

The infringements were spotted by Race Control staff and corroborated by diagrams of sailing movements sent from the crews themselves.

Both MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team witnesses said that recently introduced guidelines of sailing in TSS zones had confused sailors and that improvements needed to be made in the future to assist crews from inadvertently breaking sailing rules.

Despite the decisions, the race is a long way from being decided.

With the comeback of Team Vestas Wind (Chris Nicholson/AUS) to the fleet returning it to full-strength for Leg 8 to Lorient, France, the chasing teams still have the chance to cut drastically Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s lead before the final showdown to Gothenburg.

The Leg 8, 647nm between Lisbon and Lorient, begins on Sunday, June 7.

via Penalty point pain for trio of boats| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Xabi Fernández was tonight confirmed as MAPFRE’s skipper for Leg 8 from Lisbon to Lorient when the Spanish team revealed their crew for the 647-nautical mile stage which starts on Sunday (full story below).

– Iker contests Lisbon in-port race but misses stage to Lorient

– 2004 Olympic champion focuses on Rio 2016 training

– Trujillo also returns to MAPFRE line-up

ALICANTE, Spain, June 2 – Xabi Fernández was tonight confirmed as MAPFRE’s skipper for Leg 8 from Lisbon to Lorient when the Spanish team revealed their crew for the 647-nautical mile stage which starts on Sunday.

Xabi will step in for his fellow 2004 Olympic gold medallist, Iker Martínez, who is fulfilling pre-race commitments to train with the Nacra 17 class for the Rio 2016 Games.

It will be the fourth time Xabi has stepped in for his long-time sailing partner after taking charge for the third, fourth and sixth legs.

MAPFRE won the fourth stage from Sanya to Auckland under Xabi’s guidance.

Although he will not be sailing the leg, Iker has confirmed he will be contesting the Lisbon In-Port Race.

After taking a breather for the seventh leg, Rafa Trujillo (ESP) returns to the MAPFRE crew for the stage to France, expected to be completed after around three days of sailing on Wednesday, June 10.

MAPFRE Leg 8 crew: Xabi Fernández (ESP), Jean Luc Nélias (FRA), Rob Greenhalgh (GBR), André Fonseca (BRA), Antonio ‘Ñeti’ Cuervas-Mons (ESP), Carlos Hernández (ESP), Willy Altadill (ESP), Rafa Trujillo (ESP). Onboard Reporter – Francisco Vignale (ARG).

via Xabi back at the helm as MAPFRE skipper for Leg 8| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.