Article by: James Scanlon
The Volvo Ocean Race made a dramatic arrival into Newport, RI Tuesday May 8th, capping a 5700 nautical mile leg from Brazil. After finding themselves in 5th place with 300 miles remaining in the race, light winds approaching Newport resulted in a compression of the fleet, with Dongfeng, Vestas, Brunel and Mapfre locked in a tight battle for the lead. With only 500 meters remaining, a puff propelled Mapfre across the line, Brunel finishing only one minute behind.
The Volvo Ocean Race has been sailed for four decades and is one of the most grueling events in sports. The race is scored based on cumulative results from the 11 offshore legs, while the inshore races are used only in the event of a tie breaker. This year has been a particularly severe edition of the Volvo, according to Vestas skipper Charlie Enright, with sustained average winds of 40 knots, regularly gusting to 60. In addition to particularly savage conditions leading to several breakdowns, this years event has seen two fatalities: one crew member washed overboard as well as one Chinese fisherman, fatally struck in a collision between Vestas and a commercial fishing boat in the notoriously heavily trafficked area near Hong Kong.
Refitted after it’s debut in 2014, this years race is being sailed in The Volvo 65, the brain child of Bruce Farr. The boat is a less expensive, equally high performance one design alternative to the Volvo Open 70. Besides keeping costs down, the one design ensures that the results are determined on the water by the sailors and not by the designers. The 65 foot carbon hull is powered by an impressive 468 square meter upwind and 578 square meter downwind sail plan. While the use of engines are obviously prohibited during the race, the boats are equipped with Volvo Penta “S Drive” diesel engines and two blade folding Gori Race propellers. The Gori race was an obvious choice for the uncompromising, bear bones design as it results in zero newtons of drag. In addition to improving the performance of the boat’s foils, this commonly results in a one knot increase in sailing boat speed. As evidenced by the Itajai to Newport leg, this even seemingly minor increase in speed can often make all the difference in competition. While the two blade Gori Race offers the least drag it’s interesting to note that from the perspective of more cruising oriented boats, the 3 blade offering from Gori still only produces 1.4 newton’s of drag while providing optimum thrust when under power. Compare that figure to competing folding propellers which create between three and ten times the drag, and fixed propellers which create astronomically more drag.
Besides being a iconic event in the sport, this years Volvo is also being used as an opportunity to collect data from remote regions of the oceans and spread awareness of the unfolding ecological disaster resulting from the accumulation of plastic products in the ocean. The 7 boats, which race through seldom traveled areas of the ocean collect data on plastic particle density, CO2 concentration, algae content and ocean acidity, all indicators of the health of the ocean and the effects of plastic particles on the marine environment.
The next leg of the race, which departs on May 20, will be an Atlantic crossing, finishing in Wales. While this leg has potential for its own breed of hazards, cold temperatures, moderately rough seas and ice, it is likely that this will be a more straightforward leg then the south pacific crossings, where storms have far more room to build momentum. As it stands now, it looks like the fleet will be departing on Sunday in classic Newport conditions, mixed cloud cover and strong South Westerly breezes.