Left, right or centre?

The Volvo fleet has split in three

Roger Nilson aboard Amer Sports One reports Unfriendly Clouds

Four days out from Rio we are sailing with our teammates Amer Sports Too within talking distance. They have sailed really well. The girls like all other boats made a big gain on us this morning when we were becalmed under another nasty cloud. The southeast trades have been very unsettled since yesterday and we have been struggling to keep the pace up. Lost sight of the three leading boats last night, when we got stuck under another unfriendly cloud.

The fleet is now busy sorting out how far to stay off the coast at Recife and how steep north to go in order to enter the northeast trades after climbing around the northeast corner of Brazil. Surely the discussion is going on intensely on all boats after downloading masses of weather information. The classical route around this corner is well off the coast but last race Silk Cut and others proved that in certain conditions it is worth cutting down the distance and stay right on the beach. Recife is only 270 nautical miles away and soon we all have to take these decisions.

The actual technical sailing is easy in these tropical waters but the fatigue factor is still here as we are having a hard time to sleep due to the high temperatures below decks. During the early mornings we are reading 31 degree Celsius below deck but in the hot afternoon we are sweating away in 35 in our bunks. No reason to use sleeping bags this leg and instead we are having a nice cotton sheet to lie on. Sleeping bags are normally shared but of the smelly sheets we have one each.

One day out we realized the total absence of normal chocolate onboard. Only protein bars can avoid being melting away, but the sugar in normal chocolate is a drug most of us enjoy. Food consumption is not so high but we encourage each other to drink more then just stopping the thirst. The first sign of dehydration is often headache, already happened to a few of us. In these latitudes you can only drink too little, never too much.

As the wind has called for a lot of work with the water ballast, our engine manager Pete [Pendleton] found yesterday that we are risking running out of diesel. Using the water-maker, radar and Inmarsat B more then normal also pushes the fuel consumption above what was calculated.

That means cutting down on all energy to get on track with daily diesel use. Not fast to run out of fuel or having to ration it too hard. Surely we will be okay but need to be very aware of the situation.