Procession towards Auckland

Dongfeng and Abu Dhabi first out of the blocks after Monday's restart in the Volvo Ocean Race

While 'buffalo girls' manoeuvres earlier on in leg four of the Volvo Ocean Race provided us with some entertaining viewing, the result of this has subsequently come to nothing and the order of the boats into Auckland is more likely to have been decided by the order the boats found the new breeze after spending all of Monday (UTC) floundering to the east of Vanuatu.

Over the course of Monday Dongfeng Race Team covered just 133 miles. During the day, Charles Caudrelier's team, at the time the nominal leader, was furthest east with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and MAPFRE some five miles to their west, with Team Alvimedica and Team Brunel a further 10 miles west and Team SCA attempting a flier some 37 miles to the WNW of Team Brunel. Over the course of Monday, MAPFRE took up a berth furthest east as Dongfeng and ADOR converged. Early evening Monday the wind filled in first for the boats on the east side of the race course with MAPFRE initially pulling ahead before being out-dragged by Dongfeng and ADOR, locked in their own private match race.

Monday was miserable for the crews. As Sam Greenfield reported from Dongfeng: "We’ve just gone through the worst night yet of this Volvo. On the menu we had no wind, big swell, stopping wave right on the nose and an adverse current! AND at the end of the night enormous thunderstorm clouds with wind coming from all over the place. We came out of this night behind our two chasing competitors. Unfortunately the final cloud was fatal for us."

And this was from one of the race leaders...

The boats in the west picked up the breeze later and from having just 3.2 miles of difference in terms of DTL between Dongfeng and fifth placed Team Alvimedica at lunchtime Monday, by 0400 on Tuesday, Teams Alvimedica and Brunel had fallen to 39 and 49 miles behind respectively.

Image below (click to enlarge) courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

Since then the wind has filled in from just south of east, backed into the northeast over the course of yesterday afternoon (UTC) and has since once again headed the frontrunners as they head due south, converging with the great circle pretty much for the first time since rounding the top of the Philippines what seems like eons ago. 

With New Caledonia now behind them to the west, the boats are back out into the open water, with the next landmass they'll encounter being New Zealand. The next 48 hours look set to be fast, but processional, in the easterlies between a substantial area of high pressure moving east from the Tasman Sea across New Zealand, and a shallow but sizable depression centred to the west of New Caledonia. So a port tack beam reaching-close reaching drag race appears to be on the cards with the boats attempting to get east with every opportunity as the wind backs.

Unfortunately the present forecast has the leaders running into the top of the high as they close on the New Zealand coastline which will mean yet another compression in the fleet.  The high currently looks set to remain resolutely over New Zealand until Monday which will make for a light finish to this leg. But with Dongfeng and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing currently neck and neck for the lead, there is no shortage of racing to be had, the crews no doubt continuing to pour over their AIS tracking.

Charles Caudrelier reports from Dongfeng Race Team:

Three days of racing and two obstacles ahead of us. This is what separates us from a dream win in Auckland. Since last night we took the lead again, and with the pressure of being in front. To be in the lead after all the hard knocks we’ve taken on this leg is without doubt one of my, and the team’s, proudest moments since the start of this race.

We’ve had really hard moments, phases of total exhaustion, and moments of real frustration and anger, but onboard there is always someone ready to re-motivate the others, someone with a positive outlook. I am so lucky to be surrounded by a magic team. Erwan [Israel] who has joined us just for this one leg has delivered everything I have asked of him to make up for the absence of Pascal [Bidegorry]. Fresh and really motivated, he has brought us much more than just his talent – energy that we were perhaps missing after 4 tough legs.

At the start of this race I was really feeling the pressure. The crew selection is the key to success on this race. You don’t need the best sailors, you need the best team – it’s not the same thing. The race is still very long, this leg also, everything can still happen, but those that know me well know that I am never satisfied. However, exceptionally, I can say that I am very happy with the choices I’ve made, and if I had to choose again, I would change nothing.

As a team we are managing to be competitive whilst fully respecting our commitment to train, develop and sail alongside our Chinese sailors.

Looking forward at the next few days, the two main obstacles are the crossing of an old weather front in 24 hours time, and the finish which looks light – not sure yet whether its upwind or downwind, it is not clear. It could be a total restart, but I am really hoping if it is, that it’s between the current top 3. The other boats are now quite a long way back, but anything could happen still.

Of course it’s always better to be leading, and I’d rather be where we are than where MAPFRE is – but MAPFRE has nothing to lose, they are very aggressive tactically. Abu Dhabi meanwhile will follow us for now and wait for an opportunity to jump on us.”

Birthday banter - Sam Greenfield reports from Dongfeng Race Team

I’m looking at the AIS. Azzam is a few miles off our stern, right in striking distance.

I always forget that Charles’ bunk is just above the nav desk, like a well positioned perch in a bird cage, so he sees everything.

“How fast are they going?” he asks.

“Oh, hey. 14 knots. Now 17.9 knots.”

“I can’t sleep,” he says and rolls out of the bunk. I give him the seat and retreat to my own.

Suddenly I hear: “Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, come in." Charles is trying to hail Ian Walker on the VHF, but there’s no reply.

“Today is Ian’s birthday. Tomorrow is mine,” says Charles and goes back to hailing.

So it is. Today Ian turns 45 birthday and tomorrow Charles celebrates his 41st.

“Twins are if you have two girls on the same day, right?” Charles asks me.

“Girls? I mean, kids, sure, but why girls?” I say, but he’s found the right word and begins typing an email:

Dear Ian,

We are nearly twins – except for a few years…

He rattles off a few lines and hits send.

“I said, I wish him a happy birthday but because he’s not monitoring VHF 16 I’ll have to protest,” he laughs.

Ian writes an email back within five minutes, leading off with:

Hi Charles,

Sorry but we disconnected the VHF and stacked it in the bunks weeks ago…

He continues on, responding to Charles jokes about past teammates and stuff that can’t really be read out loud to elementary kids who might be reading this.

Charles goes on deck to tell Erwan and Kevin about the exchange.

We’ve been staring at Azzam for almost three weeks and it’s nice to be reminded that there are friends at the other end of the blip on the screen.

When Charles gets down below there’s a second email from Ian.

Hi Again,

Sorry I forgot to wish you a happy birthday for tomorrow.

Maybe you should take the day off?

Cheers,

Ian

And with that we’re back to racing.