A Taste Of The South
Leg 5 Day 23 - 14:35 GMT Sunday, March 8, 2009. |
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After more days going up wind than anyone in the Volvo fleet cares to remember, the fleet has finally cracked off and is experience ‘proper’ Southern Ocean conditions as the five boats race onwards towards Cape Horn and the second of two scoring gates on this leg of the course.
"What a relief. Finally the breeze has swung enough to let us ease sheets and get the good ship going fast in the right direction," noted Ericsson 4’s bowman, Ryan Godfrey.
"It has been days now that our distance to the finish has not budged, so what a pleasure the past 24-hours were, to be doing 20 knots and heading east," he said. |
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Ericsson 4 in the Southern Ocean, 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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Meanwhile, out in front and averaging a comfortable 18.8 knots, is Magnus Olsson and his Nordic team onboard Ericsson 3. Olsson with 3,000 nautical miles to run to Cape Horn now has a lead of 111 nautical miles over Ken Read’s PUMA, with Ericsson 4 a further seven miles in her wake.
As waves roll over the boat, making eyes sting with the salt, four of the five crews are revelling in the speeds and the miles that are steadily clicking off now. The fleet is now split over 400 nautical miles with Ericsson 3 in the north and Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking / NED) trapped in painfully light airs in the south. |
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Crew on board Telefonica Blue stacking before a tack on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Photo © Gabriele Olivo / Telefonica Blue / Volvo Ocean Race.
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The crew is not happy, but is making the best of it. Although their 24-hour run was a miserable 266nm, compared with Green Dragon’s 491, now they are beginning to pick up speed as the conditions improve.
The team broke their forestay two days ago, which although sounds dramatic, is not such a serious a problem on a Volvo Open 70, according to Chief Measurer for the class, James Dadd.
"In these boats, they do little other than stabilise the rig," says Dadd. "The bolt ropes in the headsails take the load when hoisted and you could virtually sail without a forestay a lot of the time," he adds encouragingly.
He advises that Telefónica Blue have to consider their tactics in avoiding going hard on the wind, when the risks of not having the forestay as a back up to the boltrope are more concerning. |
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Bowman Jerry Kirby onboard Il mostro en route to Rio De Janeiro on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Photo © Rick Deppe / PUMA Ocean Racing / Volvo Ocean Race.
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Earlier in the week when Ericsson 3 made her bold move to head north, Telefónica Blue’s Simon Fisher commented that the move could be one of genius or madness.
Now he concludes that it was a stroke of genius and the southern route taken by his team is, "well, not good, would be a polite way of putting it." As the rest of the fleet heads north and east, Bouwe Bekking and his men have to sit back and watch the rest of the competition blasting along while they plod upwind.
For Ian Walker, a Volvo Ocean Race rookie in charge of Green Dragon, 23 days is the longest he has ever been at sea and the fleet has only just passed the half way point on this leg. His Dutch navigator, Wouter Verbraak, was exhausted by all the upwind sailing and reported that everyone on the boat was miserable. "I find myself having to pull all my will together to get a smile on my face that keeps me going," he said. |
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Green Dragon Crew changing sails en route to Rio De Janeiro on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Photo © Guo Chuan / Green Dragon Racing / Volvo Ocean Race.
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But as soon as Green Dragon picked up her skirts and began charging towards the scoring gate with no prospect of up wind sailing for at
least a week, appetites have returned along with enthusiasm.
However, skipper Ken Read of PUMA is just taking it one day at a time. "Nearly every morning when the sun comes up, I think to myself that the last 24-hours went really quickly and we are one day closer to our destination. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you what day of the week it was. I couldn’t say, if my life depended on it, how many days we have been out here. It’s just one day at a time."
Leg 5 Day 23 - 13:00 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(Boat name / country / skipper / nationality / distance to finish)
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson / SWE) DTF 5,743 nm
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read / USA) +111
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael / BRA) +118
Green Dragon IRL / CHI (Ian Walker / GBR) +227
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking / NED) +329
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bérmudez / ESP) DNS
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri / ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp / AUT) DNS.
Visit www.volvooceanrace.org for all the latest news! |
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The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th
running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain,
on 4 October 2008 with in-port racing, it will, for the first
time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before
finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the
history of the race.
Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, stopping
at 11 ports and taking nine months to complete,
the Volvo Ocean Race is the world's premier
yacht race for professional racing crews. |
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| The official website: www.volvooceanrace.org |
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