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Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing - Volvo Ocean Race 2015 Matt Knighton/Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
The final stage of the 2014-2015 Volvo Ocean Race starts today at 1500 UTC (1700 local time) from Lorient to Gothenburg, via a pit stop in The Hague*.
Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has just about secured the overall trophy, but four boats are still competing for the second and third places.
Four teams fighting for two podium places on the final 960 nautical mile leg into Gothenburg, this leg is a navigator's nightmare, as Brunel navigator Andrew Cape (Capey) explains.
“Everything is an obstacle,” sighs the Australian navigator. “Rocks everywhere, mud banks, wind farms, ships and shipping lanes... I know I say I don't like Malacca a lot but of all places, I hate this bit more.”
Just about when you receive this Brunel has led the fleet towards a mark in the Bay of Quiberon before heading offshore, into the English Channel, through the narrow Straits at Dover and into the North Sea towards the Hague Pitstop.
“We've made all the Traffic Separation Schemes exclusion zones,” explains Race Director Jack Lloyd.
“We now have 17 exclusion zones from Lorient to Gothenburg.
“We deliberately haven't gone into the wind farms, oil platforms, gas platforms, and all that sort of thing – if we had done that as well, I doubt really whether we could have sailed through there with any sense of being a race.”
Emirates Team NZ sailing team - Glenn Ashby, Ray Davies, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke Emirates Team New Zealand
Emirates Team NZ looking for crew
Glen Ashby, Ray Davies, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, great names all but right now that is the complete Emirates Team NZ sailing team ahead of the AC45 series event in Portsmouth. Read the latest from Richard Gladwell.
Weymouth Wrap
Sail-World has at some stage been to every ISAF Sailing World Cup venue, in this global newsletter we bring you our wrap on the Sailing World Cup event that just finished at the Weymouth Portland.
This was the second World Cup sailed under the new restricted field format wrapped up on Sunday with ten Medal Races deciding the podium finishers, Abu Dhabi World Cup Final qualifiers and prize money recipients.
The Weymouth and Portland medal races were sailed on the Olympic 2012 Inner harbour course underneath Nothe Hill with GBR once again the strongest team on their home track.
Next up for the Rio campaigners, a host of European and World titles and the Test Event in Rio, then it is ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao which takes place from 14-20 September 2015.