Volvo Ocean Race – Team Alvimedica pushing harder
by Amory Ross on 25 Nov 2014
A difficult night of decision making saw an early morning jibe to the north, but not soon enough as the rest of the fleet had already gone. Ryan Houston on the wheel in light conditions through the South Indian Ocean. Amory Ross / Team Alvimedica
Sometime during last night’s moonless gloom in the Volvo Ocean Race, the masthead lights of Dongfeng and Mapfre appeared to the west, maybe right where they would have been if we had jibed with the fleet the previous day. To say that was a relief is an understatement-that we are back in touch, back in the fray near the front, it keeps everyone motivated and pushing a little bit harder.
'At this rate this leg could be decided by an Omanese sea breeze' - Will Oxley, in reference to the closeness of sailing and randomness of weather.
But pushing towards what remains a mystery. Every ounce of predictability and confidence in the weather models fades with each hour of continued wind. We are supposedly sailing on borrowed time, as the forecast indicated a windless night. Instead we powered through under full main and code zero and have yet to dip below 10 knots of boatspeed. Nobody is complaining but we’re certain these speeds will cave at some point; it’s just a game of waiting for the ball to drop and trying to be out from under it when it does.
But it’s strange not knowing when that will happen, not believing in the computers at all. We have come to trust them implicitly but they are unclear as to what will come next. Even without storms and loud extremities, I am in awe of weather at a time like this: it is a living thing free of rules and regulations and you have to take it as it comes. It cannot be controlled and it cannot be predicted, much as we like to think it can.
Fortunately it makes the game plan fairly simple: keep the big sails in the air and make them happy; no specific heading or marching orders other than to go north-ish as fast possible, while we
Team Alvimedica website
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