Summary of the Volvo Ocean Race

PhoenixParker

I've been following the race since around Christmas, and while I'm by no means a full on expert, reading the threads, it seems a lot of people don't know how the whole things works, so I figured I'd write a summary/introduction/where to find more info thread.

How the race works

It started in Alicante, Spain last October.
There are ten ports, and nine legs, one leg between each two ports.
In each port there is an in-port race worth 6 points to the winner, 5 points for second, and so on down until last place is worth one point.
Each leg is worth 30 points for the winner, 25 for second and so on down to 5 points for last place.

The ten ports are Alicante, Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Auckland, Itajai, Miami, Lisbon, Lorient and Galway.

The boats and teams

There are six boats in the race, each of which sort of has a nationality and definitely has a sponsor. They are often referred to by their skipper (captains) names.
The teams are:

• Groupama (French, Frank Cammas),
• Telefonica (Spanish, Iker Martinez)
• Puma (American, Ken Read)
• Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi, Ian Walker)
• Camper/Emirates (New Zealand, Chris Nicholson)
• Sanya (China, Mike Sanderson)

The boats are the sailing equivalent of formula one cars. They're 70ft long (hence Volvo Open 70) and their masts are 100ft high. They're fast, very fast and they're incredibly light. They are built according to a design rule book, so they're all slightly different, but in reality they're pretty similar.

Living conditions for the eleven crew are very basic. They don't carry much because a light boat is faster, so they just about get a shelf to sleep on and some very very very good wet weather gear.

The 11th crew member isn't a sailor, he's a media crew member, this means that there is some absolutely spectacular footage and photography available.

The race so far/Who's winning, who was winning
I will preface this by saying I wasn't following the race for legs two and three, so someone else might like to fill those in.

Leg 1 was incredibly dramatic, but also very frustrating. The boats left Alicante and sailed into a huge storm. Abu Dhabi's mast snapped within a few hours and they (after some work) decided to pull out of the leg, they shipped their boat on a cargo ship to Cape Town.
Not long after that, Sanya, who have the oldest boat in the race, landed badly off a wave and smashed the front of their boat to bits, they were very very lucky not to sink, and they also ended up shipping the boat to Cape Town.
The remaining four boats continued to head for Cape Town, and it was an extremely close race between Telefonica and Puma. They were within sight of each other most of the way. Groupama chose a different route and the weather didn't go their way. Camper changed their minds about the route and never quite managed to catch up.
Unfortunately Puma's mast snapped with three or four days to go, and that put them completely out of the leg. They ended up having to get fuel from a nearby containership and to motor to a tiny tiny island in the South Atlantic called Tristan de Cunha, where they were rescued by a ship sent out from Cape Town.
Telefonica won the leg, Camper came second and Groupama came third.

Leg two/Leg three
Like I said, I didn't really follow this bit of the race. Leg two was really strange because to avoid pirates they basically sailed to a ship parked off Somalia, a crane lifted them out of the water and they were craned back into the water near Abu Dhabi to finish the leg.

Leg four
This was from Auckland in New Zealand to Itajai which is on the East coast of Southern Brazil. This is the grand-daddy of all legs in the race. It's very long (across the whole South Pacific, around Cape Horn and up the coast of South America), very dangerous and very remote.
There is some spectacular footage from the boats of the conditions and also of some of the repairs.
Sanya had to pull out early, and head back to New Zealand. They then had to ship their boat to Miami (missing leg 5) because of the logistics involved. Another three boats were severely damaged before reaching cape horn - camper, abu dhabi and telefonica. Camper pulled in for repairs in Chile and then completed the leg. Abu Dhabi completed what was probably the craziest repair job in the whole race but weren't confident enough in the repair so pulled out of the leg and Telefonica managed to get their repair crew to meet them at Cape Horn, where they fixed the boat without taking it out of the water.

Puma and Groupama were absolutely neck and neck up to the very end of the leg, but then with about 60 miles to go, Groupama's mast snapped and they had to pull in for repairs. Telefonica, who had been much further behind were in better wind though, they caught up hundreds of miles in a few hours while Puma were stuck in no wind. It was incredibly dramatic but Puma just about managed to stay ahead of Telefonica to win the leg, and Groupama rigged up a few bits of sail to finish the leg and get third. Camper came fourth and the other two didn't complete.

PhoenixParker

Leg 6
This was quite short (from Itajai to Miami) and quite slow because the winds were very light. The boats all stayed very close together throughout, as in within sight, and it was anyones leg to win right up until the very end.

The big thing that happened was that Telefonica came fourth. They had been leading the race since they won the first leg and coming fourth here put them in serious danger of losing first place. In every other volvo race to date, whoever won the first leg has also won the entire race. The whole race was wide open again. They also came last in the inport race, which meant there were four boats (Camper, Puma, Telefonica, Groupama) within 14 points of each other. The race was wide open.

Leg 7
This was from Miami across the Atlantic to Lisbon. There was a very fast race through storm, with all the boats very close together. Then close to Portugal, there was a huge area with very little wind so all the boats caught up with each other.

Abu Dhabi, who have a boat that's slower than the others, managed to win this leg through some very clever sailing and simply judging the wind correctly. This is their skipper, Ian Walker's, second time in the Volvo Ocean Race and it's the first time he's won a leg. Ian Walker skippered the Irish boat, the green dragon, last time out, so it was particularly nice.

Groupama came second and Telefonica came fourth, which put Groupama in the lead by three points.

Leg 8 (Lisbon - Lorient)
After the in port race in Lorient, the top four boats (Groupama, Telefonica, Camper and Puma) were 15 points apart.
It was a short leg, the entire race around the world was to play for and they sailed straight into a huge storm. The storm (aka the winds) was so big that they broke the speed records for the race multiple times over a few days. The footage is spectacular, but also terrifying.

Telefonica managed to break not one but two rudders which almost put them out of the race since they weren't allowed any more spares. Luckily they fixed one during the Lorient stopover but they came fifth into Lorient, essentially finishing their hopes of winning the race.

The Galway Leg

Groupama are 25 points ahead of the team who are second - Puma.
There are six points available in the Galway in Port Race.

If Groupama finish in fourth place or above, they win the whole Volvo Ocean Race.
If they finish fifth or sixth and Puma come first, then the entire round the world race comes down to the in port race in Galway on Saturday, and the last six points.

It is very likely that second and third place will be decided by the Galway In Port Race either way.

PhoenixParker

More Info

The Volvo site is a bit difficult to navigate I find so:

To find out exactly where the boats are now:
http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html
and click live.
To see where they will be over the next few hours, click the little globe on the right of the top row of icons and slide the timeslider to the right. Bear in mind that all times are UTC, so add an hour for Irish time.

The scoreboard for every leg to date is here.

The legs
An hour long documentary has been made about each leg. It compiles the best clips sent by the media crew member during the leg.

They are here:
http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/schedule/html_2_Leg-1_page1.html

(click on leg one, two etc. and hit play)

my favourite clips
These are easier to handle, they're about three minutes each.

Puma's mast in Leg 1:
Lost mast, lost teeth and gained miles - Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12
Puma pick up fuel

Telefonica Big Wave Crashes

Days Of Thunder - Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12

Abu Dhabi carry out the craziest repair job ever.

Camper dodge a whale

Some Really Really Big Waves