Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Team Sanya Take 4th Place In The First In-port Race

29th October 2011
Team Sanya Take 4th Place In The First In-port Race

The day started with rain and gusty wind but that did not deter the teams, guests and fans to support the boats as they left the dock in Alicante at 1130am this morning. By the time racing was ready to get going the breeze had died to around 8 knots northerly providing testing conditions for all.

vor111029_todd_00135

Photo: Paul Todd/Volvo Ocean Race

The race got underway on time with Abu Dhabi high and fast off the line and moving into immediate control of the race which they went on to win comfortably. At the first mark, Abu Dhabi led around followed by Camper, Puma, Groupama and a bit of a gap to Telefonica and Team Sanya. Team Sanya managed to overtake Telefonica down the first downwind leg moving into 5th.

The boats then headed up to the windward leg on a tight fetch where the wind died completely and brought in a number of shifts. Camper were the first to struggle and dropped from 2nd to last place momentarily. Team Sanya moved up to 3rd and all was looking very exciting. The teams then had to gybe back to reach the gate with Abu Dhabi getting around cleanly and heading to the finish with pace.

The rest of the fleet closed up on each other making for exciting viewing and the final downwind leg to the finish was nail biting to the end with Telefonica incurring a penalty and so the finish places ended up as:
1st Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
2nd Puma Ocean Racing
3rd Camper Emirates Team New Zealand
4th Team Sanya
5th Groupama
6th Telefonica

Published in Ocean Race
Afloat.ie Team

About The Author

Afloat.ie Team

Email The Author

Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.

Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven't put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full-time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button