Volvo Ocean Race - Alvimedica cautiously cruising down coast of Africa

by Amory Ross, Team Alvimedica on 18 Oct 2014 Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15, Day Six onboard Team Alvimedica. Checking in from the Volvo 65 World Championships. It’s unbelievable, really—we have been short course racing these boats ever since we left Alicante. Cautiously cruising down the coast of Africa, close to the barren beaches of Western Sahara and Mauratania, Will and Charlie continue to place a huge emphasis on fleet positioning. In other words, we are sailing the boat very differently than if we were out here alone.

These winds are mostly 'seabreeze' in nature, a combination of the Canary Current taking cooler North Atlantic water south towards the Equator, and the hot desert air to the east. As the land heats up during the day the breeze builds, and as predictable as that is there are headlands, bays, and shallows to avoid and the aim is to lead the fleet to them. If that means four midnight jibes within two hours just to stay to one side of Brunel—one of three boats we can currently see the lights of—then that’s what we do. It’s exhilarating and exhausting at the same time, and fascinating in that dinghy tactics still seem far more applicable than traditional offshore strategy.

Everyone keeps asking about routines but the reality is we haven’t much had one. The biggest challenge so far has been our ability to manage rest, and I imagine it’s the same for everyone else. Much as we’d like to be able to sail around the world with everybody on deck all the time—it’s not possible and there’s a huge push to get guys back into their bunks after a maneuver. Just existing on these boats is tiring enough, but when interruption and a sleep schedules unpredictability take over, the needle on the gas tank rapidly approaches E.

The good news is that this back and forth will eventually stop once we’re through the Verdes in a few days’ time, and then the routing has us locked into a long cruise downwind run through the consistent NE trade winds towards the Doldrums. Plenty of time to catch up on some sleep then, and word on the waves is that King Neptune is already preparing for his first introduction to Mark, Charlie, and Team Alvimedica website