LEADING ON THE LONG ROAD TO CHINA
The 4,670-mile course for leg three was another monster and was anything but simple for the six crews remaining in the race.
But there was an extra ingredient that was rubbing away at Charles Caudrelier and his determined men on Dongfeng. This was the leg to their home port, where the Dongfeng dream had been born and where their sponsors would be waiting. The Chinese were expecting them and the Chinese were expecting a winner.
What no-one could have foreseen was that Dongfeng would lead virtually from start to finish.
Initially Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (ADOR) held the advantage, followed by Team Brunel, while Dongfeng was hampered twice by getting caught up in fishing nets. But by the end of the first day the Chinese boat was back up to speed and in front. By day three they were plugging along off the coast of Pakistan and the crew was settling in.
Dongfeng continued to hold onto her lead as the weather dictated a course 400 miles west of the Indian coastline as the boats headed south in the Arabian Sea. By their eighth day at sea the question on Caudrelier’s mind was how far south of Sri Lanka they needed to go to escape its wind shadow. Being the leader made him and his team feel very exposed.
As they continued south, the seas and winds began to build, augmented by the funnel effect between India and Sri Lanka. Sam Greenfield captured the scene. “I go to the hatch and look outside,” he reported. “I can’t see anything but angry, rolling ocean.”
In the event the game of cat and mouse under Sri Lanka worked in Dongfeng’s favour. The chasers got within eight miles of her before she accelerated away to a 30-mile lead as the passage across the Bay of Bengal to the Strait of Malacca began.
On board Dongfeng the crew were already tired out by the battle to stay in front. Matters were hardly made easier by long sessions when the boat was almost becalmed, a fate that, fortunately, also befell their rivals.
Eleven days into the leg and the gremlins came back to haunt the team as the padeye that failed on leg one started to deform under load. Kevin Escoffier climbed into the starboard aft ballast tank to try to shore it up.
Four days later the Dongfeng crew sailed into the Malacca Strait. After 48 hours playing the game of chance in the Strait, eighty-five miles of their advantage had vanished as they sat in a windless hole while their rivals ate up the miles behind them. Caudrelier was finding his limit. “Nightmare, nightmare,” he muttered.
But just as quickly as she had vanished, Lady Luck returned to smile on the Chinese boat as fresh conditions allowed her to reach away from her competitors. She was flying again as she raced past Singapore with her lead restored to 80nm.
A broken jib strop in the South China Sea was a sharp reminder that gear failure could still ruin a stellar performance. But Dongfeng was on the scent of her greatest triumph and, as the miles ticked by, the dream of victory into China steadily became more tangible. For the crew the final miles were almost unbearable.
When Dongfeng finally made it, there were jubilant scenes on shore and on board. She had led the fleet continually, save for a few hours on the first day and the crew had made history as the first Chinese team to win a leg of the Volvo in its 41-year history.
SAM GREENFIELD’S VIVID PORTRAIT OF NAVIGATOR PASCAL BIDÉGORRY HARD AT WORK
Pascal is biting his nails again. He looks like a French submarine commander from a Cold War movie. If he could smoke his cigarettes down here, no question, he would.<
But I don’t know any French submarine movies, so to me he’s a French Sean Connery, running from a Dutch Jack Ryan. His eyes are glued to Brunel’s AIS data on the nav chart. They’re still the only boat in range. You’d think we were dodging depth charges.
“Boat speed: Eleven point four. Bearing: One ninety-eight,” he says into a microphone. When he’s not biting his nails he buries his face in his weather hand and mutters French obscenities.
All the lights are out down below. The chart screen illuminates his weary face. “Ten point nine. One eighty-eight.” Pascal’s numbers echo through every square metre of the boat’s black carbon belly, lost on the four sailors soundly asleep on the floor.
The air on deck is clean and warm and the moon has just started to rise. It chokes out the Milky Way and dims the expanse of stars overhead that Eric had been driving along to. The numbers continue: “Eleven point two. One ninety-five.”
Thomas trims the sails as an F1 driver shifts gears.
The scene on deck is a far cry from Pascal’s moonless war desk. Imagine the wide-open chases from Master and Commander, and the Dutch Archeron has closed the gap down to two nautical miles. That’s why Pascal is biting his nails.<
“Boat speed: Eleven point four. Bearing: One ninety-eight,” he says into a microphone. When he’s not biting his nails he buries his face in his weather hand and mutters French obscenities.
All the lights are out down below. The chart screen illuminates his weary face. “Ten point nine. One eighty-eight.” Pascal’s numbers echo through every square metre of the boat’s black carbon belly, lost on the four sailors soundly asleep on the floor.
The air on deck is clean and warm and the moon has just started to rise. It chokes out the Milky Way and dims the expanse of stars overhead that Eric had been driving along to. The numbers continue: “Eleven point two. One ninety-five.”
Thomas trims the sails as an F1 driver shifts gears.
The scene on deck is a far cry from Pascal’s moonless war desk. Imagine the wide-open chases from Master and Commander, and the Dutch Archeron has closed the gap down to two nautical miles. That’s why Pascal is biting his nails.
