Left hand turn

Tense gybing moment in the Volvo Ocean Race

The formation flying continues in the Volvo Ocean Race, the six VO65s still in the middle of the Arabian Sea between Oman and India.

Yesterday as they followed a circuitous route around the eastern perimeter of the zone of high pressure that continues to sit over Oman, the tactical teams were weighing up when to gybe south - the later they left it would see them slow as they encroached on the high, but would allow them to sail a hotter angle towards the mark on the new gybe. However in this one design race, the strategic game is more important and as Matt Knighton describes it below, first everyone saw the two tailenders - MAPFRE and Team SCA - go at around 1830 UTC. Ironically this moved  Less than an hour later this caused race leader Dongfeng Race Team to gybe, followed almost immediately by the rest of the boats.

So, after this tense, but otherwise minor rerolling of the dice this morning Dongfeng Race Team continues to lead, making around 9 knots. At the latest sched, Team Brunel is in second, 8.5 miles behind Charles Caudrelier's team, and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing a further 11.5 miles back, having overhauled Team Alvimedica to move up to third.

From here, it should be more or less straight line sailing to the next major turning mark of the course at the southern tip of Sri Lanka, some 1100 miles down the race track from Dongfeng. The wind is forecast to veer into the northeast and build marginally over the course of today, but the boats will have to negotiate another light patch as they close on the coast of India on Saturday. Here it may possibly pay to remain offshore slightly as this appears to be where the breeze is filling in from.

Positions at 0940

Image below courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

From Matt Knighton, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing: 

You couldn’t have fit more people around the nav station if you tried. SiFi and Ian were sitting together in the seat, both pairs of eyes fixed on the routings in front of them. Behind them, Neal was seated on the floor, eating his breakfast and glancing at the screen between bites. All the while, other crew gathered nearby, and you began to sense the big tactical decision looming: would we go east or west?

Being the hunter sometimes you don’t get to choose where to hunt.

Ian explained, “There are two vastly different routing solutions. One goes east towards the coast of India and one goes west offshore. Obviously it’s pretty risky to separate from the whole fleet. The safe thing to do is to do nothing until somebody else does something but I suspect we’re all thinking the same thing. At some point somebody has to blink.”

The tension was thick in the air. Pre-race we clearly favored going east along the Indian coast – relying on the sea and land breezes near shore. But if we chased that plan, there was a chance no one would follow.

Ian broke his silence, “It’s too big a risk you know? Finish last in this leg…it’s not the end of the race but it’d be pretty damaging for us. I think it’s the smarter move to stay here with everyone else. As much as I hate following.”

At the dusk sked, MAPFRE and SCA – who have nothing to loose – took the chance and gybe east. Immediately Dongfeng followed and, to cover the leaders, the rest of us went as well. At the same time we passed Alvimedica, only 200m to windward. A small victory but the hunt goes on.

Sam Greenfield reports from Dongfeng Race Team:

Pascal is biting his nails again.

He looks like a French submarine commander from a Cold War movie. If he could smoke his cigarettes down here, no question, he would.

But I don’t know any French submarine movies, so to me he’s a French Sean Connery, running from a Dutch Jack Ryan.

His eyes are glued to Brunel’s AIS data on the nav chart. They’re still the only boat in range. You’d think we were dodging depth charges.

“Boatspeed. Eleven point four. Bearing. One ninety-eight,” he says into a microphone

When he’s not biting his nails he buries his face in his weather hand and mutters French obscenities.

All the lights are out down below. The chart screen illuminates his weary face.

“Ten point nine. One eighty eight.”

Pascal’s numbers echo through every square meter of the boat’s black carbon belly, lost on the four sailors soundly asleep on the floor up forward. They rise onto deck to more attentive ears.

It’s 0800UTC and the air on deck is clean and warm and the moon as just started to rise and it chokes out the milky way and dims the expanse of stars overhead that Eric had been driving along to; locking his spreaders onto the most convenient constellation to keep his orientation.

The numbers continue: “Eleven point two. One ninety five.”

Tomas trims the sails as a F1 driver shifts gears.

When Pascal’s numbers reach the two they can compare their own speed and bearing to the flickering masthead light on the horizon. Know your enemy.

The scene on deck is a far cry from Pascal’s moonless war desk. Imagine the wide-open chases from Master and Commander, and the Dutch Archeron has closed the gap down to two nautical miles.

That’s why Pascal is biting his nails.

Charles is sleeping in the front of the boat on a pile of crew bags until Pascal rouses him and the two walk back to the nav station where they compare their data with Brunel’s.

“Tonight is an important decision,” explains Charles.

“It’s maybe the only gybe left on this leg and you have to choose a good position because then you have 600 to 1000 miles to pass the India coast. So where you gybe is going to be your position compared to the fleet for the next four days.”

The two rise from their desk and walk up on deck together.

“If you gybe too early,” he continues, “it’s a big mess because you are going to be in light wind. If you gybe too late you lose a lot of distance because right now we’re sailing 90 degrees of the coast. So its’ difficult to choose and it’s a key point of the leg.”

Charles takes the helm from Eric and tells Pascal to wake the crew for a gybe.

“If we do a good gybe tonight and are fast I think we’ll be able to keep the lead for the next four days so it’s very important.”

The young sailors clamor on deck and everyone is at their station and rubbing tired eyes in less than 60 seconds. There are no red flashing lights or battle station calls, but it feels the same none the less.

We gybe and the crew off watch returns to their bunks.

When the sun rises Kevin is at the help and Brunel is eight miles behind us.

‘The Dutch sailors behind us’ are mentioned and Kevin breaks his driver’s trance.

“Bahhwah? They are Dutch?”

“You didn’t know?” I ask. “I can’t believe that.”

I ask Tomas and he replies matter of factly: “Well… I knew they were Dutch, but I never knew Bouwe was, so…. No.”

Kevin continues.

“Well, Bouwe, I thought he could be American, sure, but Dutch? I had no idea.”

They’re baffled.

So much for know your enemy, but I suppose that means our Dutch nemesis would make a fitting Jack Ryan after all.