Tighter than ever

Passing Casablanca the Volvo Ocean Race fleet jockey for the best conditions

Image above courtesy of Expedition and Predict Wind

All eight of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet are back in action after Telefonica Blue returned to the race course yesterday. They are now negotiating good breeze off the coast of southern Morocco with speeds up into the teens.

Having gone through a transitional phase in the weather yesterday, the fleet are now into the beginnings of the trade winds with the wind slowly veering from the NNE to northeast at around 15-20 knots. At present there isn't much gradient with an area of high pressure developing to the north of Madeira (some 300 miles to their west), but what there is appears to lie on the left (eastern) side of the course.

Yesterday the leaders spent the day trickling downwind at around 5-6 knots on port gybe heading west then, as of around 1600, southwest as the wind shifted and built.

While the boats were tightly clustered, they began to start choosing their lanes: the Ericssons, Puma and Telefonica Black remained in the middle of the race course, Green Dragon was choosing the left and Team Russia the right. Meanwhile bringing up the rear both Delta Lloyd and Telefonica Blue have chosen a route closer to the African coast both to minimise the miles they have to sail and also because the forecast (above) indicates this route to offer the strongest breeze.

Of the front runners only Green Dragon appeared to be doing her own thing, putting in a hitch to the east to gain the left early in the afternoon.

By the evening the breeze had built and the boats were back up to making 13-15 knot speeds. Up until midnight Green Dragon seemed to be falling back on the leaders and shortly after midnight she put in a short hitch to the southeast, establishing her in the left again. The lead four and Team Russia also gybed southeast at around 0200. The front four gybed back ahead of Green Dragon but the move had pulled Ian Walker's team back into the pack with Ericsson 4 leading the charge, with just nine miles separating first from fifth.

Puma skipper Ken Read described the opening stage of their race: “Life has been a bit hectic since our start, including a fast and furious first 10 hours. One minute we were planing into the lead, losing visual contact with the two Ericsson boats in a little squall, and the next thing we knew they were 15 miles ahead of us.

“Since that time we have had squalls, drift off's, tons of tacking and gybing - all to be overlapped with Green Dragon and Telefónica Black in the Straits of Gibraltar. It was pretty cool actually, as we had a few mechanical problems on board and catching up the way we did was a huge boost for the team. It is great to be at sea, great to back with the boys. And besides having a little catching up to do with the two Ericsson boats, and fending off the rest of the fleet, all is great on board.”

Green Dragon skipper Ian Walker reported: “We have finally escaped the Med despite being parked for hours off Gibraltar. This was frustrating, as we had built up good leads over Puma and Telefonica Black, they were able to sail right up to us in the dying breeze. We seem to be struggling for speed relative to others when the wind shuts down. As of this morning the top five boats could all see each other as we gybed on the shifts heading South down the African coast. We can no longer see Ericsson 4 but Ericsson 3 is just ahead as are Puma and Telefoncia Black”.

Life onboard Green Dragon has been good, although some minor keel issues immediately after the start has meant that Tom Braidwood has been on 24 hour duty to resolve the issue. For the first day, the crew had been forced to operated the keel system manually, thankfully the system is now fully operational and the crew are focused on hooking into the northeasterly Trade winds as they sail south. The current routing takes them down the coast of Africa, then through the Canaries before taking a wind shift to get west, and set up for the Doldrums.

Walker continued: "Everybody is being very cagey covering every move or sail change. Puma and Telefonica Black seem to be very fast downwind in the light and they have consistently sailed away from us. We will have to be patient and hope our turn comes. Everybody on board is well rested now despite lots of frantic tacking and gybing and all the associated ‘stacking’ of gear and sails in the Med. Sometimes it feels more like we work for a removals company than a sailing team as we spend large amounts of time carting gear from one side of the boat to another - at least it will get easier as we use up the supplies!

"Life onboard is pretty pleasant with light winds and no water on deck. We are carrying out a few minor running repairs and checking the boat over. It appears that Justin and Animal (Andrew McLean) have fixed the J4 halyard problem and we have got to the bottom of the keel issue that bugged us at the start. The only other thing of note was a stowaway passenger we had which was a robin (red breast) that flew into the boat and has been living in the galley. This was amusing for a few hours but we have now lost him and nobody saw him leave. The last sighting was of him flying aft towards the nav station. Hopefully he flew away for all our sakes."

Andreas Hanakamp reports from on board Team Russia:

Some kind of a race routine has already settled in. There is a constant change of faces on deck. Every two hours two guys are coming up while two go down, eat and go into their bunk. The four guys on deck are sailing the boat, one helming, two trimming and one grinding. Wouter and I run our own watch, navigating and helping with maneuvers, whereas Wouter digs more into weather analysis and I do a share of driving.

We have the most pleasant sailing one can imagine. The breeze from the port or starboard quarter is in the high teens and the boat sailing like she’s on a track with smooth movements. Just the bow is throwing up some water and a constant cloud of spray around, occasionally digging in and sending water back to the cockpit. It is warm outside and the water is more joy than anything.

The only thing that doesn’t make us happy is that we don’t find a way to close up to the leaders. Delta Lloyd and Telefónica Blue found an easterly route that was closed for the boats earlier through Gibraltar and caught up on the whole fleet through a shorter distance sailed. We tried to position ourselves to get the fresh breeze first yesterday, which didn’t work out unfortunately. Now we are working on finding a way to work back every mile the pack is in front. As it looks at the moment there are not too many opportunities until we get to the Doldrums. The key is to stay in touch.

The last position report has shown Green Dragon in the lead, revealing what a great job Ian Walker and his team are doing. They are seriously challenging the three big teams, fantastic.

Crutches are the must-have on a sailboat. Mike [Joubert] has brought his due to the injury he has sustained two weeks ago. Nick [Bubb] found them and has cut them up to support our ram boot repair. At least are light weight aluminum, but carbon would have been even better.