Sally Collison/PUMA Ocean Racing
The new race course marks a dramatic departure from the traditional Volvo Ocean Race route, after a 'traditional' first leg down the Atlantic to Cape Town. The new route would take the fleet to Asia for the first time ever - to Cochin in India to be exact.
It wasn't ever going to be easy. The second leg was still nearly 5000 nautical miles up the Indian Ocean, past Maurituis and the Maldives to the southwest tip of the continent of India. The forecast was for a predominantly light and upwind leg.
The leg started with a beat down the Cape peninsula, and the teams anxious to get an early jump towards the scoring gate, which provided plenty of incentive to get south and east and quickly as possible. So the Southern Ocean would still come into play after all.
It didn't take long for the big winds and waves of the south to take a toll. Green Dragon broke its steering gear, resulting in a crash gybe. Similarly, Team Russia had a famous wipe-out, all the footage captured and published on the race website. Then Ian Walker's Green Dragon team broke its boom, while PUMA launched off a wave and came down with a sickening thud - the main longitudinal support frame was broken and the team would have to take its foot off the accelerator to make repairs.
In the high winds, Ericsson 4 again proved to be the class of the fleet, racing through the gate at top speed. Stablemates Ericsson 3 pushed the veteran team all the way, while Green Dragon, boomless, made a remarkable third place through the gate.
Team Russia, in its best showing to date was fourth with team owner Oleg Zherebtsov was fourth, while the Telefonica twins struggled in the big conditions; Blue was fifth, Black was sixth. The injured PUMA, back on track had to settle for seventh while Delta Lloyd brought up the rear of the fleet.
As the teams turned north though, the temperatures climbed, and the winds eased. By the end of the first week, the Doldrums loomed with the Ericsson boats still at the front and Green Dragon and now PUMA, back near the front. Telefonica Blue started to show signs of life, but then a broken daggerboard appeared to hinder the team, which started slipping much further west than skipper Bouwe Bekking wanted.
With the fleet compressing in the Doldrums, it was still anyone's game. Then Ericsson 4 disappeared into a rain cloud and popped out the other side with a 30 mile lead. Ericsson 3 was still the top pursuer with Green Dragon still sailing well without a boom. The forecast was grim for Telefonica Blue in the west, while Team Russia, gambling on an easterly passage was forecast to come out very strongly.
But the forecasts were very wrong. In the event, first Ericsson 4 and then Telefonica Blue were beneficiaries of a blast of westerly wind that threw them towards the continent. Both were on their way, leaving the others in the dust.
As the third week of the leg began, the interesting battle was for third place, the top two - Ericsson 4 and Telefonica Blue - were long gone. In the fight for the remaining podium spot, Ericsson 3 was clinging to a narrow advantage while Green Dragon, PUMA and Delta Lloyd were engaged in a dogfight for fourth. In fact, this triumvirate were so focussed on each other that Telefonica Black found an opening.
In the best use of a StealthPlay to date, skipper Fernando Echavarri and navigator Roger Nielsen elected to hit the stealth button to disappear from the position reports with just over 100 miles to go. The team turned towards the coast and used the first of the morning sea breeze to sail around the three boats in front of them. PUMA gave chase, while Delta Lloyd squeezed past Green Dragon for sixth place. And poor Team Russia, wallowing in their easterly Doldrums crossing, trailed the fleet by a disappointing margin.
The teams received a raucous welcome from massive crowds in Cochin. And in a fitting tribute for their efforts on a very frustrating leg, Team Russia arrived in the middle of the opening ceremony of the Race Village, where they were greeted as conquering heroes. The first ever Asian stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race was off to a rocking start.