Ericsson 4:
Leader Of The Pack
Leg 5 Day 16 - 14:42 GMT Sunday, March 1, 2009. |
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| After negotiating the two islands that make up Fiji yesterday, the pack was split in its decision to go east, west or straight between the islands. Today, as the islands fade into the distance, Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael / BRA), who chose an easterly course along with Green Dragon (Ian Walker / GBR) and Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson / SWE) is back at the top of the pack as the fleet heads south towards New Zealand. |
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All hands on deck, onboard Telefonica
Blue, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao
to Rio de Janeiro.
Photo © Gabriele Olivo / Telefonica Blue / Volvo Ocean Race.
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Unfortunately for the ten New Zealanders scattered among the fleet, five within that of Ericsson 4, there will be no stop in New Zealand for the Volvo Ocean Race this time and this is causing some anxiety. Ian Walker has hidden the passports onboard Green Dragon in case his two, Andrew McClean and Chris Main, make a swim for it.
"There was already some talk of swimming ashore as we sailed through the islands off the eastern tip of Fiji, so we will have to stay out of swimming range of the New Zealand coast," he said. |
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One of the small islands off Fiji,
as seen from onboard Green Dragon, on leg 5 of the
Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro.
Photo © Guo Chuan / Green Dragon Racing / Volvo Ocean Race.
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Onboard Ericsson 4, the crew are relieved as once again, they become the southernmost boat in the fleet. A milestone onboard today has been passing the ‘8,000 nm to go’ point.
"It’s funny to hear the guys saying ‘only 8,000 miles to go’. Our minds must be bending a little out here as 8,000 nm is still a very long way to go," wrote Ericsson 4’s bowman Ryan Godfrey.
"The breeze is still pretty light and I suspect that we are falling behind all our earlier routing runs. One upside of this is that I am now secretly confident that my Cape Horn ETA bet is looking good, as it is one of the later dates." |
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Brad Jackson escaping rain clouds, onboard
Ericsson 4, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao
to Rio de Janeiro.
Photo © Guy Salter / Ericsson 4 / Volvo Ocean Race.
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Throughout the fleet, everyone onboard is happy and relaxed as the breeze has settled and the boats are rolling along on an endless port tack at around 14 knots.
Two crew are particularly happy. Magnus Olsson, skipper of Ericsson 3, is happy because he is a coffee addict. All the food bags onboard his boat seemed to contain just pre-packed cappuccinos and small bags with ready mixed coffee and Magnus wanted the ‘real stuff’, with no sugar or anything else added.
For days, MCM Gustav Morin rummaged through almost half their food bags, but no real coffee. After 15 days at sea, 18 for most of the crew, Magnus had got used to it, but yesterday, when Gustav opened a bag he hadn’t looked in before, there it was. Magnus celebrated. The other happy skipper is Ian Walker, for almost the same reason, except that he wanted powered milk so he could have a nice cup of tea and this at last, has come to light. |
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Eivind Melleby onboard Ericsson 3,
on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio
de Janeiro.
Photo © Gustav Morin / Ericsson 3 / Volvo Ocean Race.
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But, onboard PUMA (Ken Read / USA) in second place, MCM Rick Deppe is not happy. In fact, he’s pretty grumpy, having been wakened from his nice sleeping place on a beanbag in a cool corner at the back of the boat, when the wind went light and the crew needed to move the weight forward. Rick declined the offer of sleeping on a wet sail forward of the mast next to the rubbish bags and instead thought a cup of tea would be just the thing.
"I head off to the galley only to discover that we are out of tea bags for the next couple of days. In theory, I am the only tea drinker on the boat and I am allocated three bags per day. The problem is that other people tend to become tea drinkers the moment they step on board," he said. |
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Skipper Ken Read helming onboard PUMA
Ocean Racing with Fiji in the background, on leg 5
of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro.
Photo © Rick Deppe / PUMA Ocean Racing / Volvo Ocean Race.
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He settled for coffee
on deck and at 03:10, he was cheered up by the beauty of the
night. "The wind was blowing around nine knots and the sea
was perfectly flat, subsequently no splashing at all - a very
rare occurrence on a Volvo 70. This fact alone was enough to
cheer me up. The coffee was warm and tasted great and I had had
a brilliant 45 minutes up on the foredeck and no-one even knew
I was there."
Onboard Telefónica Blue, the team has been celebrating navigator Tom Addis’ 39th birthday with a small bottle of wine and some macadamia nuts. "A small sip of wine was a treat to the palette after water-maker water for so many days for sure," said helmsman Simon Fisher. |
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Iker Martinez on washing duty onboard
Telefonica Blue, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race,
from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro.
Photo © Gabriele Olivo / Telefonica Blue / Volvo Ocean Race.
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The theme of food continues to Ericsson 4, where the crew has been amusing themselves with a ‘pea-throwing’ competition. "We have an abundance of what we thought were wasabi coated peas, but something was lost in our Chinese and we ended up with peas covered in an unknown and flavourless coating," explains Ryan Godfrey. The crew is now seeing who can throw a pea and get it through the 30mm mainsail clew ring from a distance of four metres.
"It is harder than it sounds as the apparent wind has to be taken into consideration," says Ryan. So far, only one pea has made it through the ring, thrown by Brad Jackson. "There is some doubt if it went through as he claims it did," Godfrey added. |
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Phil Jameson trimming as seen through
Media Crew Member Guy salters video camera, onboard
Ericsson 4, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from
Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro.
Photo © Guy Salter / Ericsson 4 / Volvo Ocean Race.
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Onboard Ericsson 3, the crew is preparing for the Southern Ocean and being more vigilant with their eating, sleeping and adhering to the watch system properly. "We can’t afford the guys to be burned out and sick after the first part of the leg and not be 100 per cent when we reach the Southern Ocean," says Gustav Morin. The team believes they will put in a strong performance in the Southern Ocean, provided they stay in shape.
The flat water and medium wind speeds, with few sail changes, is allowing the crews to sleep well on their off watch and recharge their batteries in preparation for what is ahead. "We may have done 5,000 nm, but this leg has hardly started," said Ian Walker.
Ericsson 4 has 570 nm to run until she is level with the northernmost point of New Zealand. They are 780 nm from the northwestern tip and 682 nm due north of the latitude 36 scoring gate. The fleet is currently split across an east / west divide of approximately 45 nm with Telefónica Blue the westernmost boat in the fleet and Ericsson 4 in the east. |
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Magnus Woxen changing sails, onboard
Ericsson 3, while PUMA Ocean racing and Ericsson
4 lurk over on the horizon.
Photo © Gustav Morin / Ericsson 3 / Volvo Ocean Race.
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Leg 5 Day 16 - 13 00 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(Boat name / country / skipper / nationality /d istance to finish)
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael / BRA) DTF 7,841 nm
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read / USA) +18
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson / SWE) +27
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking / NED) +50
Green Dragon IRL / CHI (Ian Walker / GBR) +58
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bérmudez / ESP) DNS
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri / ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp / AUT) DNS
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