Volvo Ocean Race – Malacca Nightmare – now it’s a boat race again!!

by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World Team on 20 Jan 2015 Volvo Ocean Race Leg three race leader Dongfeng yesterday was 100 nautical miles ahead of the chasing pack as she sped down the first part of the funnel that is the Malacca Straits.

Then she hit the wall, almost parked up and in the day, she lost 55 miles. Suddenly she was only 45 nautical miles ahead of the second placed boat, MAPFRE, as the following fleet was still in 5-6 knots of breeze.

Her losses continue overnight Dongfeng has lost 16 nautical miles to the following fleet in the last 12 hours. The distance between the Chinese boat and Team Alvimedica, now in second place, is only 23nm.

So in 36 hours after entering the Strait of Malacca, they’ve lost more than 70 m to the rest of the fleet.

Their On-board Reporter Sam Greenfield explains '24 hours ago we were completely alone in the ocean and leading the fleet by over 100 nautical miles. Then we got a little bit closer to the gut of the Malacca Strait. We’ve had to dive on the keel to remove debris twice.

'I asked Charles to describe the past day in just two words. 'Nightmare. Nightmare.' He actually said it twice. 'No wind, the current against us. Our boat speed to the goal, maybe it was zero. So it’s nightmare for a leader, and maybe we’re not a leader anymore.'

The conditions have been very tricky overnight. As expected they have had from 2 to 9 knots of wind – that’s extremely light in the tidal conditions.

In the last five hours, as the day broke, the boats have been moving thanks to the southeast thermal winds from
the coast of Sumatra. It’s now time for the offshore wind to fill in.

In sixth position, Team SCA has been playing the coast, sailing as close as 7nm from the shore. They’ve gained 3nm in the last 12 hours. The Swedish team is still 43nm behind Team Brunel.

In fifth position, the Dutch team has lost almost 4nm in the last 12 hours. At 0015 UTC they had no wind and one knot of current against them, so they had to drop their kedging anchor in a depth of 60 meters (180 feet) for at least one hour. They lost some precious time there.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing also suffered the consequences of the current and lack of wind and had to drop the anchor 10min after Team Brunel did. Team Alvimedica decided not drop it and they sailed backwards for at least 1.5nm.

'After a period of drifting where we anchored to prevent ourselves from getting washed backwards by the tide […], Mapfre and Alvimedica struggled in the light air,' blogged Abu Dhabi’s OBR Matt Knighton this morning.