Three different options

As Telefonica Blue snap their forestay in the Volvo Ocean Race

Friday March 6th 2009, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom
Image above courtesy of Expedition and Predict Wind
 
Positions at 0710 GMT
 
Pos
Boat Skipper
Lat
Long
Spd
24 hour
DTF
DTL
1
Telefonica Blue Bouwe Bekking
42,15.89S
172,02.77W
11
208
6544.3
2
Puma Ken Read
38,42.54S
169,19.12W
15.3
309
6565.4
21.1
3
Ericsson 4 Torben Grael
39,20.56S
170,37.14W
14.8
265
6586.1
41.8
4
Green Dragon Ian Walker
38,28.62S
171,22.03W
13
247
6646.6
102.3
5
Ericsson 3 Magnus Olsson
34,40.04S
167,14.12W
15.5
405
6687.8
143.5
 
If you want today's assessment from Green Dragon navigator Ian Moore - click here.

Since yesterday the five boats in the Volvo Ocean Race have divided into three groups. Ericsson 3 continues to do her own thing in the north and Ian Moore reckons she's looking promising despite being in last place at the moment.

Telefonica Blue have nominally taken the lead since they splintered away to become the most southerly boat and thus closest to the great circle route to the ice gate (or Position A as the Volvo Ocean Race refer to it). Yesterday mid-morning the southerly group of boats tacked back to the northeast with the exception of Telefonica Blue which at the time was already the most southerly boat, but continued on towards the centre of the high only tacking northeast at around 2300GMT last night. As a result this morning she is some 180 miles SSW of Ericsson 4, in turn the most southerly boat in the middle of the race track.

At present all the boats are between a depression to the northeast (centred at 33°S 166°W) and an area of high pressure to the south (centred at 47°S 172°W). If the GRIBs and satellite wind radar images are accurate, Ericsson 3 looks set to fetch into the south side of the depression and at around lunchtime today wll tack out again as the wind backs from southeast to northeast. It doesn't look like she is skirting to the north of this system although she is clearly cracked off - she has notched up 405 miles over the last 24 hours...

Meanwhile the rest of the boats are all on starboard tack in southeasterlies, only, compared to Telefonica Blue in the south, the boats in the middle of the race track have more pressure, Puma recording 22.3 knots to Telefonica's 16. The boats in the middle also appear to be slightly lifted.

We expect that the mid-group will follow similar tactics to Ericsson 3 only delayed. They won't see the wind backing northeast until tonight. Telefonica may not see the full benefit of the shift at all, although they will be into easterlies in 24 hours time. However longer term Bouwe Bekking's team made be better placed. As mentioned yesterday the high currently to their south is set to do an anti-clockwise lap of the fleet, shooting off to the northeast over the weekend. Telefonica if she maintains her southerly berth will be much better positioned to take advantage of the stronger northwesterlies due once the high has passed through.

However.....

Bouwe Bekking reports from Telefonica Blue :

We were ripping along, making great speeds in 15 knots of breeze, when all of sudden a loud bang was heard from the rig. My first instinct was to look up, and saw immediately that the mast was still in one piece, and a fraction late, the headsail dropped in the water.

Forestay broken. It was around 06:30 in the morning, Jono [Swain] was driving, and his quick reaction to bear away saved the rig. Immediately we put some halyards on the bow, to stabilise the rig, as it was sweeping like a spaghetti pole.

We didn’t have to wake up the other guys, as they all had run up. First thing was to get the big jib out of the water, which was huge effort as it was filled with thousands of litres of water, but luckily we got it back in one piece. Then we had to get the sail out of the headfoil, which is a carbon fibre piece which slots over the actual forestay. That was easier said than done, but with some brute force that job was finished as well.
In the mean time we were running dead downwind, and working on a system to use the stay again, so at least we had something to jury rig the mast with. We did a rig check and all seems to be all right. In the mean time I had been on the phone with our shore manager, to go over eventual scenario’s, regarding spare pieces. By then I knew that the actual forestay hanger was broken, this is a 30 mm stainless steel piece, and it had snapped right through the middle.

One option was returning to NZL, but with Tom’s [Addis] feedback, the weather slot would have been a bad option time wise, so we decided to carry on. Let’s hope we get some downwind sailing, as there shouldn’t be any problems with that. But tight reaching and upwind will be slow, as we only can hoist a very little jib on separate stay and of course we don’t want to sacrifice the mast in any way.

Everybody is extremely disappointed, but we all having the same fighting spirit. We started well behind, and actually became first on the leader board yesterday, a huge reward for 21 days of working extremely hard. Of course this is a setback, but there is still a long way to go, WE WILL NOT GIVE UP!!!

Simon Fisher reports from Telefonica Blue :

If the cloud from the other night was like a giant foot descending from the heavens and stamping on us, the events of this morning were like that massive foot had come back and kicked us square in the *!?*

I was awoken this morning by the sound of a massive bang and cries of 'everyone up!' coming from on deck. As the boat rolled over to windward on us, I hurried to pull my boots on and rushed upstairs in my thermals only to find the jib dragging in the water down the side of the boat, forestay and all. Luckily, due to some quick thinking by the guys who were on watch at the time, they were able to keep the rig upright and quickly secured it with spare halyards to prevent our situation becoming even worse.

After much scrambling around, the jib was hauled back on board and pulled from the now broken tough luff and after some work the forestay has been jury rigged back up in place to provide some extra support for the mast. Not an ideal situation at all, especially with so many miles to Rio to go. However, for now we have vowed to battle on albeit a bit worse for wear.

To add insult to injury we have wandered too close to the high pressure system and have spent much of the morning with very little breeze. Turning downwind to make repairs has only made the situation worse. We are back upwind again now though and battling to get back to the pressure. This luckily is slowly coming back to us but has taken most of the morning. Quite frankly it hasn't been our day.

Despite all the adversity thrown into our path, everyone onboard has remained upbeat and optimistic. I think we are all feeling that we have been quite lucky to escape with the mast intact and with the goal of getting to Rio still well within our grasp, even if now it might take a little longer... For sure it has been a bad day but if we are honest it could have been a whole lot worse too.

Ryan Godfrey reports from Ericsson 4 :

What is up with this leg? I had envisioned us screaming along in the roaring forties and pushing hard to break our 24hr record soon after passing the first scoring gate. Instead, here we find ourselves sailing upwind in an easterly breeze and contemplating how to negotiate a tropical cyclone that lay ahead. For God’s sake, we are below 40 degrees south latitude! Give us some downwind sailing and let these Volvo 70s do what they do best.

The mood onboard of late has been a little mixed. We are all disappointed to have lost our hard earned lead and are now curiously waiting to see how the positions will settle down after the split fleet start to come together again. Sailing conditions were quite mild today with relatively flat seas, although the temperature, both water and air is rapidly dropping. The evening sky tonight was particularly attractive with no clouds, thousands of stars, and a constant loom of light to the south reminding us of our summertime, southern location.

There have been some chocolate crimes today as our daily allowance of one bar per person pulled up short. No great dramas as we could just pull out the new day bag, but for how much longer is that an option? With all this upwind sailing it feels like our ETA will just continue to get delayed and food stocks rationed. Here’s hoping for a change to come.

Was also Nipper’s birthday today - nothing special happened - but we all shook his hand.

Other than that all good on Ericsson 4.

Wouter Verbraak reports from Green Dragon :

You have to go through the centre."

St. Malo, November 2002 and I am onboard Francis Joyon`s trimaran. Together with French navigator Jean Yves Bernot, I am visiting the boats we will provide with weather routing for in a French solo race across the Atlantic.

The weather outlook is terrible and we are discussing storm strategies to get his trimaran safely across.

On a used bit of paper Joyon draws a circle, puts a big "L" on it and draws his proposed route to deal with the low pressure, "Straight through the middle. It is the fastest and safest way."

Now seven years later I am thinking back to this moment as we have to deal with the monster that is approaching us. Head seas and storm force winds. How are we going to keep the boat together and at the same time beat the other guys?

Francis is an amazing yachtsman, so when I was sailing with the American 90 foot maxi yacht Rambler two years ago, we tried this strategy on a monster low in the Atlantic. We avoided the strongest headwinds and found shelter in the centre.

This should work in the South Pacific as well, right?

So if you are following our track, it is no madness, on the contrary we are aiming for the very eye of it, on purpose!

Sounds simple maybe, but let me tell you, we are preparing the boat and ourselves for war in the next 24 hours. Everybody is checking his personal gear, the stack is secured extra well, the generator is being tested, we have made plenty of water and have lots of snacks at hand. This is not going to be a lot of fun.

Down in the nav station Ian and myself are monitoring the development of the low. The strategy will only work if we hit the centre perfectly, so we are tracking its progress with satellite pictures and grib files. Of course the bloody thing keeps changing its mind all the time, but we have him locked in our sight.

The guys on deck are anxious to know the timing of events, so we are constantly updating them with expected max winds and what time we will hit the first front.
So cross your fingers, and we are going to have a good wind angle in and out, and can start making quick miles towards Cape Horn. About time!

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