Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has completed a gruelling 600 mile nautical journey from its training base in Cascais, Portugal to the Volvo Ocean Race 2011/12 home port in Alicante, Spain, as the record-breaking team begins final preparations for the race start on 29th October
Battling heavy 40 knot winds to arrive in the Spanish port city by October 1st for scheduled rigging and keel work, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and its state-of-the-art Volvo Open 70 racing yacht, Azzam (determination), negotiated the Straights of Gibraltar in a testing three day trip.
The journey also provided a crucial final training session and data collection opportunity on a route which it will navigate under race conditions in five weeks time on the way to Cape Town.
“Nobody likes bashing upwind in these yachts but it is good to test everything one last time before the start. It is important to stress Azzam in these training sessions whilst we still have time to make refinements and it’s been so far so good. We had up to 40 knots of wind and a short, steep seaway at the Straits but we never had to back off. We have definitely improved our sail changes and refined our upwind data,” said Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing skipper, Ian Walker.
“We will be back out on these waters in the opposite direction for the first leg of the race, so it has been a critical journey for us, and our navigator Jules Salter has been taking notes every step of the way. Every bit of training we do can make the difference come race time; this is a race about seconds, and every one counts.”
