Northward bound

All the Volvo Ocean Race now through the scoring gate

Friday November 21st 2008, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom
Image above courtesy of Expedition and Predict Wind
 
Positions at 0655 GMT
 
Pos
Boat Skipper
Lat
Long
24 hr run
DTF
DTL
1
Ericsson 3 Anders Lewander
32,50.84S
064,11.23E
447
2658.7
2
Ericsson 4 Torben Grael
33,42.34S
065,24.47E
443
2691.3
32.6
3
Puma Ken Read
33,40.19S
064,06.65E
448
2707.1
48.4
4
Green Dragon Ian Walker
33,58.76S
064,52.81E
472
2714.1
55.4
5
Telefonica Blue Bouwe Bekking
33,57.88S
064,38.89E
498
2716.4
57.7
6
Telefonica Black Fernando Echavarri
34,21.02S
063,58.57E
463
2748.1
89.4
7
Team Russia Andreas Hanakamp
34,42.11S
064,54.84E
478
2755.4
96.7
8
Delta Lloyd Ger O'Rourke
35,04.13S
065,02.40E
513
2774.1
115.4
 
All the boats are now through the 58°E scoring gate. Green Dragon picked up third (and 3 points) at 08:40 yesterday followed by Team Russia at 09:36, Telefonica Blue at 11:40, Telefonica Black at 12:25, Puma 12:34 and Delta Lloyd at 13:21.

This sees Green Dragon drawing level with Puma for second place in the overall standings, a good result for a boat at present sailing without a boom. The overall standings at present are:

1 Ericsson 4 - 18
2= Puma - 14
2= Green Dragon - 14
4 Telefonica Blue - 12
5= Telefonica Black - 8.5
5= Ericsson 3 - 8.5
7 Team Russia - 6.5
8 Delta Lloyd - 4.5

Next stop Cochin, which for race leader Ericsson 3 remains 2658 miles away.

Having passed the gate so yesterday all the boats turned northeast, although some more sharply than others - Delta Lloyd is still taking a relatively flat course away from the Southern Ocean hoping to stay in the big breeze for longest.

Despite getting into the low 30s now in terms of their latitude, the boats are still clocking up good speeds of around 17-19 knots in the northwesterly winds generated in the northeastern quadrant of the depression to their south. However they are sailing directly away from the depression and into the stickiness of the easternmost lobe of the high pressure to their west. Thus this morning we can expect boat speeds of the front runners to drop off dramatically and a compression to take place in the fleet. But fortunately the light conditions are only set to last for a few hours before the depression continues east enough resulting in the high moving east too... Thus come tomorrow morning the forecast is for the wind to have filled in from the south and the boats should be moving again... Over the weekend the high will continue to move east, by which time the boats should be to its north, allowing them to make good progress north in a southeasterly flow. So, apart from a light patch today, no major hurdles.

While we have become used to seeing the Juan K-designed Ericsson boats hauling the mail in a truly impressive manner when the breeze is up, one wonders if we will see any of the other boats come into their own when conditions get lighter?

For some must-see multi-media from Team Russia - click here


Gustav Morin reports from Ericsson 3 :

In the middle of nowhere, with only open seas surrounding and only birds and fish listening and watching, six guys are making big noises of joy. With fists in the air, screaming and laughing, we are celebrating being the second boat to the scoring-gate along the 58 longitude.

Second is second and we are certainly aiming to beat everyone. But, it still feels very good and from where we are now our navigator, Aksel Magdahl, thinks that we are looking good for the rest of the race as well.

The boat feels great and the guys are all in all in pretty good shape. The boat has been handling nicely and we feel confident for the coming Southern Ocean leg. We now know that we can handle rough seas and strong winds for a long period of time without problems.

The toughest part sailing-wise for this leg should be over. Now we are heading north into the unknown and therefore the most exciting part of this race.

We have of course made a lot of research on the area before the race, but since no one has been racing here before, there is limited information. So far, the weather information has been very precise, something we probably will not experience from now on.

There has been a lot of talking about the dangers of piracy in the areas we are sailing into. Their best business is to take hostages and demand money. Hmm, I wonder how much a bunch of professional sailors would be worth?

We will probably never find out. Firstly, because I’ve heard that you should never pay people for hostages, since it will only make them commit the same crime again and they will probably kill you anyway. The other reason is that I don’t think we will see any pirates at all. We will never be closer than 1400 NM to the coast of Somalia and if the waves are higher than two meters and we are sailing in more than 15 knots of boatspeed, I don’t think they will even consider trying to catch us.


Guy Salter reports from Ericsson 4 :

I guess it must be huge news onshore but in the last day, we have been getting the news of the piracy off Somalia, apologies if this is the thousandth blog mentioning the fact!

Pirates come in all shapes and forms, from the fully organised terrorist style, which we are reading about so much, to the opportunists. There are a lot of reported incidents, which are not piracy at all. I have sailed many, many miles throughout SE Asia and piracy was one of the big worries in this area, all too often curiosity is reported as piracy.
Many a time I would be several hundred miles from land and a small fishing boat would follow you - sometimes for hours on end. On the odd occasion, the fishing boat would come right along side - often with the occupants fully clothed - even the face covered up - and in 30 degrees or more heat.

Now this always looks a worry when confronted by masked assailants, but in reality, the fishermen cover themselves completely to protect themselves from the sun, they can’t go and buy sun cream - no matter what factor! They often come and try to sell you very, very fresh fish - usually for next to nothing or some western food.

These fishermen have probably been on the ocean every day of their lives since their early teens and have not seen a state-of-the-art yacht, which we are so used to in our world. If they are ‘for-real pirates’ - then they will have so much fire power that you would not be able to do anything even if you wanted to.

We are jib reaching along in 16kts of wind, there is still the odd wave over deck and a lot of spray - but nothing like a few days ago. The temperature is rising quickly and the kit bags are filling up with the thermals - which we won’t see until washday (by which time they will probably have learnt to talk...). Life onboard is definitely more civilized

Back to pirates - the only pirates I can think of right now are CBBC's ‘Space Pirates’ - a show all parents of the young ones will be familiar with and all of whom will surely be able to sing the theme song - which will probably be stuck in my head for the next 24hrs


Ken Read reports from Puma :

Today was a great day. It is the little things in life that tip the scales from not so good, through to great. It is a larger scale on some days than it is on other days. What made today so great is the fact that it has been over 24 hours since we have had out power tools grinding carbon fibre in order to laminate new carbon skins on our damaged yacht.
Seriously, this is a great day.

I know that the interior of these boats and the lack of amenities have been well documented. The lack of much hygiene, the noises the boat makes and the lack of sleep are all part of the game. Mix in a nice layer of carbon fibre dust in to your clothes, foul weather gear, sleeping bag and food and you have a pretty good idea of what it was like on the fine yacht for the last few days. Sounds lovely doesn't it? It really isn't.

We do have a new lease on life in the race as well. We got the boat going again and made some gains to the north enough to feel like we are back with most of the pack. Not out of the woods yet, but at least we feel like we are back racing with the main part of the fleet. Again, a huge relief. Believe me, there was a point in time where I was wondering if we could make it in to port within a few days of the fleet, never mind feel like we were racing again. Huge testament to the entire Puma team who all took on our situation quickly and professionally.

So, I don't want to jinx ourselves because we still clearly aren't 100% and things could go pear shaped at any time but at least for now we are racing and very happy on board.
Just got a news report sent to the boat about the pirates off Somalia who snagged an oil tanker...There is some news that we just don't need to know about...


Bouwe Bekking reports from Telefonica Blue :

Laurent’s arm is stable (Laurent Pages/FRA), and he has slightly more movement, but still has more pain than he really wants to admit.

Of course the painkillers are doing their job, but also the negative side affects have kicked in, a bad stomach, so now he has to ‘run’ to the toilet, not easy having only one arm to hold with, we are doing an average of 21 knots, just over 40 km per hour. Very Bumpy. Let’s not even talk about the usage of toilet paper.

On deck: wet, wet, wet, and the guys look like soaked cats when they come down below, but no complaints, they are all doing well. These kinds of courses always give good opportunities for guys who don’t do a lot of driving in other conditions. Pepe (Pepe Ribes/ESP) for example, is one the fastest in these conditions, just keeps the pressure on and ripping along, slowly but surely, eating miles back from the guys ahead of us


Navigator Matt Gregory reports from Delta Lloyd

The story remains the same: More fast sailing. We just gybed and are heading north towards India. We’ve successfully hitched a ride onto another low pressure system. The sea state is relatively calm, considering the wind speed is in the mid 20s. We have our favourite sails up: the fractional zero and a reef in our main. Every ounce of weight in the boat is stacked in the most extreme aft position on the boat, to keep the trim of the bow…and the speed… up. With small waves the boat can sit on 23-26 knots of boat speed for minutes at a time, since we aren’t surfing down and then crashing into waves in front of us.

I’ve spent a lot of time strategising over the past few days on positioning ourselves correctly on this new course. We made the decision 2 days ago to ignore the mid-course scoring gate positioning. We want to get to India. And we want to get there in good standing. That is our focus. The boys are pushing the boat hard. Really hard. And we are catching the boats in front of us. After a tough start to the leg, we are crawling our way back. We've passed Telefónica Black and the Russians this afternoon. Telefónica Blue and Green Dragon are just miles away and we are closing quickly.

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