4 Jan 2012

Camper eye revenge on final stage of leg two

9:30 am on 4 January 2012

With the final part of Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race due to begin in less than 20 hours, the Team New Zealand boat Camper is eying unfinished business after missing out on winners glory to Telefonica by under two minutes in the first stage of the leg.

The fleet will restart racing with a 98 mile sprint along the United Arab Emirates coast from Sharjah to Abu Dhabi early tomorrow morning and with six points on offer overall leg honours are still up for grabs if Camper can secure first place and Telefonica finishes fifth.

A strong Shamal dessert wind of 20 to 30 knots is forecast and combined with the short, sharp course an intense battle is likely down the coast with the fleet expected to finish late tomorrow afternoon in close proximity to each other.

The Camper skipper Chris Nicholson says it is an unforgiving course that will require teams to be on top form from the starting gun.

The restart of Leg 2 comes after organisers decided to split the leg into two parts due to the heightened threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean.

The boats raced to an unnamed Safe Haven before being loaded onto a ship for transportation through the worse affected areas to a point off the Sharjah coastline.