Chinese Sailors Come a Long Way in the Volvo Ocean Race

Members of the Dongfeng team racing last year. The Chinese crew members in
this year’s Volvo Ocean Race have quickly overcome their lack of experience. CreditYann Riou/Dongfeng Race Team, via Volvo Ocean Race

NEWPORT, R.I. — The Chinese team in the Volvo Ocean Race could not have performed worse during a trial run in September, less than a month before the actual race began.

With France’s top ocean racers training the crew, the Dongfeng Race Team watched a $15,000 sail slide overboard and a Chinese crew member cling to a halyard as he met the same fate, the line shredding his palms, only to be rescued along with the sail.

“The French guys were getting loads of grief,” said Mark Turner, one of the Chinese team’s managers, at a stopover here last week. “The other teams, everyone, thought we were irrelevant.”

But Dongfeng, whose crew includes members who had never slept on a sailboat or spoken English before February 2014, arrived in Newport on Thursday as the victor of the race’s sixth leg, which started in Itajaí, Brazil, on April 19. It was the second leg the team has won in the nine-leg race around the world, which covers 11 ports and about 39,000 nautical miles.

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