Dramatic nail-biting finish to Leg 2, Stage 1

Dramatic nail-biting finish to Leg 2, Stage 1

27 December 2011

After sixteen days at sea and over 5000 miles nautical miles CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand has been squeezed out of first place by just one minute and 57 seconds in a thrilling finish to stage one of leg two.

The final 24 hours came down to an intense match race between CAMPER and Telefonica with the boats sailing in sight of each other and often only 100 metres apart.. The lead was exchanged several times in a back and forth battle but with CAMPER holding the advantage for much of the last day. However, in the end Telefonica came through at the last minute, grabbing the definitive lead with just eight nautical miles to go and eventually winning.

The draining close quarters battle has left the crew exhausted, having had little sleep for days on end, but with the overall race lead riding on the result, there was no chance for rest with everyone on deck to coax the maximum speed out of the boat.

CAMPER skipper Chris Nicholson says it has been an epic leg.

“In a way I’m disappointed in the result because we led for the majority of this race. We had an amazing battle with Telefónica these last few days and then we got rolled about an hour from the finish by one rogue cloud. Occasionally the sport can throw that up at you. Telefónica sailed a fantastic race, they really did, from start to finish. They were there to take the opportunities in the end and congratulations to them.

“This was a seriously tough race and overall I thought we operated really well as crew and a team. We’ve certainly came out of this leg much more battle hardened and ready to move things up a notch.

“In the medium reaching conditions Telefónica had some serious legs. PUMA at times were good as well but Telefónica really stood out. We've got some work to do there. We've got a few ideas, and we certainly learned a lot about our boat in regards to that and we got better as we went on. There were a couple of scheds a few nights ago in some breezy reaching conditions and we nailed those scheds with different combinations. Have we fixed the problem? No. Are we on the way to fixing the problem? Yes"

CAMPER takes 20 points provisionally for second place in the first of a two-stage, 5,430 nautical mile leg to from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi, where 80 per cent of the available points have been awarded. Telefonica takes took 24 for their first place.

The provisional overall leaderboard sees Telefonica top with 61 points, followed by CAMPER on 54.

The results however remain provisional with CAMPER protesting Telefonica over an incident towards the end of the race where Telefonica failed to respond as required by race rules to a luffing manoeuvre from CAMPER forcing CAMPER to bear away in order to avoid a collision. This protest will now be heard by the international jury in Abu Dhabi.

The finish line was set at an undisclosed destination or ‘point a’ to protect the six-boat fleet from pirate activity. The boats will now be shipped to a point off the Sharjah coastline in the northern United Arab Emirates in time to start a short day-long sprint to Abu Dhabi in early January for the remaining 20 per cent of the leg points.

ends

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