Doldrums snakes and ladders

As Ericsson 4 breaks away in the Volvo Ocean Race

Thursday November 27th 2008, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom

Image above courtesy of Expedition and Predict Wind

Positions at 0955 GMT

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Lat	Long	24 hr	DTF	DTL
1	Ericsson 4	Torben Grael	01,03.24S	077,33.22E	204	666.4
2	Ericsson 3	Anders Lewander	02,00.42S	077,08.74E	171	720.7	54.3
3	Green Dragon	Ian Walker	02,04.45S	076,47.08E	182	723.3	56.9
4	Telefonica Blue	Bouwe Bekking	02,12.06S	075,40.13E	175	730.4	64
5	Delta Lloyd	Ger O'Rourke	02,15.02S	076,44.57E	201	733.7	67.3
6	Puma	Ken Read	02,22.53S	076,48.02E	159	741.4	75
7	Telefonica Black	Fernando Echavarri	03,28.97S	075,15.31E	152	808.5	142.1
8	Team Russia	Andreas Hanakamp	03,29.08S	077,09.48E		809.2	142.8

A major game of snakes and ladders has taken place in the Volvo Ocean Race over the last 24 hours. Race leader Torben Grael's Ericsson 4 has finally shaken off their tenacious teammates, Anders Lewanders' Nordic crew on Ericsson 3 and have opened up a lead of 54 miles. As Ian Walker (and Ken Read) explain below the difference over this period has been whether the crews have managed to play the clouds well or not, or perhaps their fate has merely been down to lady luck. Puma appears to have fallen victim to both, their position plummeting from third to sixth, although only 20 miles separates second placed Ericsson 3from them.

The impressive riser over this period has been Delta Lloyd, the former ABN AMRO One, which has forged up the fleet into fifth place ahead of Puma. In the fight for second place, the boats are tightly grouped together, with the exception of Bouwe Bekking's Telefonica Blue out to the west. Bekking's team must be thanking their lucky stars because judging from the met pictures we were looking at yesterday they appeared to have substantially more Doldrums ahead of them than the boats to the east. The other two corner bangers - Team Russia and particularly Telefonica Black - have lost out over the last day, the latter having been 87 miles off the lead yesterday morning, 142 miles away now.

The data coming off the boats indicates the wind is still light - 6-9 knots for alll the frontrunners with boat speeds hovering below 10 knots. We can expect another slow day today.

Next up is the Equator which Ericsson 4 should be crossing tonight. But despite having broken into the westerlies, the boats are by no means out of the woods, for the satellite images are showing another band of Doldrums to cross between 3-5°N. Nice! As Ken Read reports, at one point their GPS yesterday was showing an arrival time in Cochin as Christmas Day!

Ryan Godfrey reports from Ericsson 4 :

Warm times aboard today as we leave the rain clouds of the doldrums and head into clear blue skies. Several of the boys have moved their mattresses up on deck now in the hope that sleeping temperatures are slightly more bearable than down below. The boat is humming to the sound of our little bunk fans desperately trying to get some air flow happening below decks.

Race wise, things are still going well. We have lost some of the lead earned yesterday but still hold a commanding position and are really hoping for an increase in pressure that may allow us to get the average speed up. 665 miles to go. Not far, similar to a Sydney Hobart race, but at 6kts boat speed, the finish is looking a long way off.

Spirits are still high aboard and conversation has turned to what lay ahead for us at the Cochin stop over.

Ken Read reports from Puma :

I promised to not use the tag line ‘Life at the Extreme’ because it belongs to Volvo and if we all start using it too much it will get abused and not have the same impact.

Forget that. We are living sailing’s ‘Extremes’.

Windy running and reaching for a week, with incessant fire hose to the face on deck was quickly replaced by finesse sailing with the masthead genoa and a lot of heat. Below was aired out finally and the moisture was all but eliminated. I will tell you that the last 24 hours of the windy reaching was pretty bad down below. We had to have all the hatches and vents shut because so much water was coming over the deck. But, outside the sea temperature was about 29°C and the air temperature was not far from that as well. Foul weather gear was miserable to put on but completely necessary and below was a sauna. Yuck. Throw in 11 guys without showers for 10 or so days and you get my drift.

From quite windy and exhilarating sailing, to our second stint with the doldrums. For il mostro we were on top of the world as we kept in one piece in the windy stuff and entering the doldrums we had moved up to third and could see second place Ericsson 3 about 3 miles away. Then came the first of many, many bad clouds and torrential rainsqualls with light, circling breeze in them. We watched Ericsson 3 simply sail away.

Later that day we saw a position report that the Dragons simply sailed right by us about 4 miles away and finally on the other side of us Delta Lloyd has sailed by as well.

Unreal. I was told this doldrums place could be a killer, but I had no idea it could be this bad. And, believe me, we aren't trying to sail in the bad clouds. Just the opposite! We were in a virtual pinball machine of bad clouds. When we thought we had a good three hour run, the others did better. When we thought we had a bad three hour run (drifting and slatting), we were right. We took one on the chin and its now time to get back off the mat and start swinging again.

The weather reports at this point give us days of light air to go to Cochin.

I know our shore crew, who want to get into fixing the boat, are not going to be pleased to hear this. Looking at the GPS last night during one of our particularly bad times, we noticed that the estimated time of arrival to Cochin - using the speed the boat was going at the time- was Christmas day! Yikes.

But, all aboard remain up beat. Although we have had a tough doldrums crossing so far, we all know that things can change in a heartbeat. We are counting on it and all on deck are completely in sync with trying to gain every inch possible.

Not too much else exciting to report. Happy Thanksgiving to all back in the States. It will be one of the first times that I can remember not being with my entire family on this day - so hello to all. There should be quite a bit more turkey available for you today compared with other years.

Ian Walker reports from on board Green Dragon :

At first light this morning, we came through a massive raincloud and poked our nose into a northwesterly breeze. This was the sign we were waiting for that we were exiting the doldrums for the second time this race. Fortunately, we seem to be quite good at getting through the doldrums, as we have climbed up the leaderboard to third.

It was an agonising 150 or so miles, where flat calms were interspersed with rainsqualls and wind from every part of the compass. We had two shocking clouds that stopped us in our track, but nothing compared with the hole, which engulfed Puma about 10 miles from us. We managed to just skirt it by 100 metres or so and gained about 15 miles in 2 hours - there was nothing Puma could do as a huge cell grew above them and stopped them dead.

We did have our bad moments - not least when I was steering and got caught in a downdraught under one cloud. It is the first time I have gone full circle in a boat without tacking or gybing - all in 20 knots as the lads furled the code zero. It culminated in us being stuck head to wind with our soon-to-be patented 'multiple bridle no boom mainsheet system' pinned in the middle and a spinnaker sheet wrapped around the rudder! 1 hour later the rain cleared the wind came back and we got going again - not very good.

So here we are, now in a drag race with Telefónica Blue, who somehow managed to escape the wider doldrums in the west, Ericsson 3 who must look at how Ericsson 4 got away in disgust, and Delta Lloyd who we can see about 10 miles behind. Their crew changes seem to be working wonders as they are doing a great job. It is certainly still a fast boat.

Looking at the weather forecast there could be all sorts of fun and games to be had in the 735 miles to go and I wouldn't rule out anybody just now. For us we are really happy to be in a boat race after 10 days without a boom. It is funny that nobody seems to mention it anymore apart from the odd wise crack like 'ease the vang' or 'pull on the outhaul'. Oh how we laugh....

Simon Fisher reports from Telefonica Blue :

We have been moving now since shortly before dawn. Things might be looking up. We have even made some inroads into the boats way off to the east of us, giving us renewed hope and energy for the remaining miles to come.

The conditions should suit us as we have covered many hundreds of miles in the Med this summer in similar stuff! The feeling of dread every three hours has now been replaced with excitement with everyone onboard keen to know if we have gained some more miles out here on our westerly track. I have been fortunate to be the bearer of good news for the last few scheds.

Every three hours there is a news and weather update as I disappear downstairs only to return on deck, paper in hand to deliver the news, and then answer all sorts of questions usually follow: Who was higher? How much wind has so and so got? Why did we gain? Who was the fastest? All questions that I’m always happy to answer, even more so when the results are swinging in our favour.

With only 700 miles to go I suspect the ‘how far now’ question is coming too, probably followed by ‘when are we going to arrive?’ The key to answering the second of these two questions is now the main job in hand - working out what the weather is going to do over these last few days. So far, the weather has been ever-changing, sometimes inaccurate and at best unstable giving us little solid stuff to go on. This all adds to the challenge however - if we can be smart then we can certainly gain. If not well, the opposite I guess!

Life on board is pretty pleasant now too. The stress of being parked has left us (hopefully for a while at least) and it is warm and dry on deck... The sun is shining and there are few clouds in the sky. I think we must be a seasonably-affected bunch. Everyone’s mood improves with the sun and it would seem that there is keen interest in the sea temperature too, as it seems to appear on the instrument displays regularly. Fortunately, for us, it is only going to get warmer and, whilst this means it is going to be a little stickier downstairs, a more generous supply of diesel this leg has allowed us to have the fans running to give us a blast of cooling breeze in our bunks. Luxury for the time being at least!

Navigator Matt Gregory reports from Delta Lloyd

Let’s see if I can sum up our day in the five minutes I have while waiting for our weather download from our satellite communication connection: this could be a difficult blog for me to write…to tap into the communication side of my brain, because the analytical side of my brain is working overtime today.

It was an awesome day. We’ve made massive gains on the entire fleet. All the work that we’ve done strategising about positioning our boat for ‘Race 2’ has paid off. We passed both Telefónica Boats and are ahead of the Russians. Puma is 7 miles off our bow as I type this entry.

Today was a day of setting ‘pick and rolls’ off of clouds sailing in and out of rain squalls and an uncountable number of sail changes to quickly adapt to the changing conditions.

The rain was not only great for taking a quick warm fresh water shower, and the obligatory full body lathering of soap, but it was also a great opportunity to capture fresh water to relieve our injured water maker. Using our cooking kettles, we captured the water that flowed into the centre of our mainsail like a funnel.

I won’t get any sleep tonight as we skip from cloud to cloud; this is full focus, high stakes racing in the navigator’s hot seat. Gains and losses hinge on every decision and interpretation of weather data, radar imagery and gut feel.

Whoa…make that 2 minutes…Here comes a yellow blob on the radar screen…got to run…

Navigator Wouter Verbraak reports from Team Russia :

Tough day at the office? Yes, absolutely! The wind is all over the place, the quickscat satellite wind pictures are not available, and our competition in the west that should be in less breeze is gaining on us, big time! The Doldrums are making themselves felt with huge squall systems followed by dead calms. Think the Atlantic doldrums are a challenge? Try these for a laugh.

For most of the last four hours, the wind has been below 5 knots. When we have 7 knots of breeze, everybody sighs a breath of relieve as we feel the boat slowly accelerates to eight knots, then we are getting places. ….The models are not looking very promising at all either, as it has the Doldrums light wind area do a super nova over the next days. ETA India? No idea at the moment. One thing is for sure it is not looking like the 30 November like it did four days ago!

So how do we deal with this all? Well, we are lucky to have a team that is determined and super focused. Trimming, driving and calling the wind is rotated at least every hour to keep everybody sharp. Jokes are shared around as well, to take the edge of it all. It is these stages of the race, where keeping positive and looking for that next little patch of wind, the next cloud line and the next squall count. You can bet everybody is having a rather challenging time out here, so make the most of it and you will have a good chance toe do well.

One of the big things to get us home are the squalls. There are plenty to deal with, but not all of them are friendly. In our world, we deal with either ‘suckers’ or ‘dumpers’. The first ones generally really do badly and we try to stay away from them, where as the second version are like a God send.

The sucking clouds are typically dark black clouds that have no rain underneath them. Most frequent in the afternoon, when the clouds are building up, like a vacuum cleaner, they suck up all the air around them. Sometimes this means that there is a bit more wind along the flanks and back of them, but in general, they just swallow you and make your sails go flap-flap for the next hour.

Dumping clouds are a whole different story all together. We love them! Typically, these clouds come with a fair bit of rain and wind, so we can get a good boost through the light winds. Don’t get caught underneath them though, as the wind kills all the wind….
So, especially in the morning and evening, we are active cloud-chasers. Every cloud gets sized up and gets points. One for a really bad sucking cloud, 10 for the top dog 25-knot gust clouds. Find one of them to ride for an hour and you are looking good on the next sched.

This morning we had a few good ones up in the sevens and eights. This afternoon, however, things are much too quiet with very little to propel us to Cochin. So looking forward to the evening when winds are slightly stronger and the eight and nines come out. We've got to get out of this place!