Third for CAMPER in Leg 3 but looking for more
After thirteen days at sea CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand has taken third place in Leg Three and retained their second overall position in the Volvo Ocean Race.
At the end of an exhausting last few days beating up the Vietnamese coastline CAMPER managed to hold off Puma to cross the finish line at 1528 local time/2028 NZT continuing their run of podium finishes.
However, it was a case of missed opportunities for CAMPER who despite a spirited fight-back did not manage to recover vital miles lost in a tactical error in the Malacca Strait.
CAMPER Skipper Chris Nicholson says that it was an incredibly challenging leg.
“It’s been really tough physically and mentally and while it’s another podium finish it’s not the direction we want to be travelling in. We thought and expected to do better than third to be honest.
“It’s a very long race and we’re staying in touch with the leader but the reality is that we’re not performing well enough and need to deliver a more consistent showing. It’s time for a first and hopefully that will be the next one as we come into Auckland.
“At one stage in this leg we were fifth and I think we showed a lot of character within the team to fight back to third. To grab that position is good and it’s a positive for us to finish on. However there’s still a lot of thought required about how we can start winning legs. There’s a lot of determination amongst these guys and even if at times we don’t have the fastest boat on the water we’ll do everything we can to scrap into a podium place.
“We now need to go away look at our performance in the leg, review and debrief everything in detail, see what went well and what didn’t and ensure that we come out absolutely firing for the next leg into Auckland.
“Heading back to Auckland and to where it all started is going to be massive for us and we want to deliver the best result for all our supporters.
“There’s a lot of work we need to do to achieve that so after a decent rest we will be back in training on and off the water to lift our performance.”
CAMPER picked up 19 points for the truncated leg from Abu Dhabi to Sanya to be sitting on a total of 80 points, 15 astray of Telefonica and 9 ahead of Groupama.
Campers tactics are wrong (again), & the boat is not fast (again). Why the positive spin?
Here is an open question to the crew of Camper of which I am sure the answers will be varied and many. “What does it take to recover from 13 days of Volvo Ocean Racing?”
@ mike….
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving – we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
@ Mike, I think there lies the grace of Camper’s crew, that most probably the boat is not the fastest in the fleet (Telefonica sure is…), yet they fight all the way to make the best out of the boat’s performance and place as high as they can.
Camper’s objective is not to do as good as they can, but to be first… So I believe the guys -and the Team behind them, will do the best possible to achieve that. ( the crew most definitely has done that so far… by exhausting themselves…)
If you know you have no speed advantage your tactical choices – or at least some of them – are forced and not what your choice would be in an ideal world.
Compare this opposing to Telefonica’s advantage. The Spaniards, never had to really make a choice, specially after they figured they had the fastest boat… Leg 2A was definitely an example. More or less the same applied in the Malacca strait.
Camper on the other hand, I believe made just one, really costly mistake, that of being indecisive, on Leg one…
On leg 2A they sailed well and smart, but at the very final moment, got passed.
Leg2B and 3A I am sure everyone believes that it was a matter of sheer boatspeed difference (deficiency) that had to do with “design speed” not because of the way the boat was sailed or how the sails were trimmed…. designer’s or team’s choices about the boat’s performance envelope, I believe has to do more with that…
Let’s wait and see how it goes on the next two legs, were supposedly (and hopefully…) they should be predominantly heavy air downwind legs… The boat’s configuration -at least in theory- should promote exceeding performance in such conditions.
After all everyone but “Indio” [who apparently feels gutted that Dalts chose Nico instead of him(?) to lead the team] values the crew, their abilities and will to win….!!!
I personally got to know some of the guys over my years of international sailing and i guess it would be hard to pick a more determined and tenacious crew lineup…
G.
^^^YAWN!! No one is questioning the abilities and commitment of the Camper crew, only the ability of the skipper who in only three legs has found more ways to spin his failures than a two-up spinner.
George the-older-I-get-the-better-I-was Nottis sees only one mistake by Nicholson: try opening both eyes!! I suppose the decision to go beachcombing along the Malaysian coast was another stroke of bad luck!?!
If we’re to believe any of Comical-Ali Nicholson’s spin, Camper attracts bad luck the same way Telefonica attracts wind!!