Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 Day 7

PUMA pull the trigger on boomerang move

PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG has finally turned east and is sailing fast in the same direction as the rest of the fleet after tracking north for days. However, despite benefiting first from a northerly wind shift PUMA is still heading east rather than south towards the finish in New Zealand.

“We had no plans to be a couple of hundred miles away from our nearest competitor,” said skipper Ken Read, who believes his split from the pack is not a gamble.

“It looks horrible, but I’d say that historically, it is the more correct way of doing it. I think no one came this way as they didn’t have the breeze to do it.”

Read is now hoping his team can get east faster than the rest and maintain their separation from the fleet, a scenario he said might not play out fully for at least another week.

“If we get close, that means we’ve failed,” Read said. “We need to have a north and east advantage gauged on them all the time for this to work.

“We have to have a better angle the entire time going south. We will do an arc, a big old boomerang around the outside of the fleet,” he said optimistically.

Read said PUMA’s split had tested the mettle of the whole crew and weighed especially heavily on his own shoulders.

“I’d be lying if I said that beat up north wasn’t one of the most miserable day and a half of my life,” he said.

“Knowing we’d left the fleet with a reef in our main, number four jib, literally just airborne off of square waves, current with you and 25 knots of breeze against you, horrible seas -- it was pretty much all we could do on board to keep the mood up there.”

However Read maintains the breakaway strategy was not a foolhardy gamble to try to catapult PUMA back into contention.

“When you’re sailing in a northerly that is coming down to you and the rest of the group are sailing away in a southerly unfortunately you don’t have the choice,” he said.

Meanwhile, on long-term leader CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand skipper Chris Nicholson is facing challenges from both north and south.

Overall race leader Team Telefónica’s fortunes improved after taking a dip south and the Spanish team had moved in second place at 1300 UTC today.

“We are now sailing under spinnaker and it seems like we have a good wind shift,” said Diego Fructuoso, Telefónica’s Media Crew Member (MCM). “We are all hoping that the crazy days are behind us and we can start heading south.”

Franck Cammas’ Groupama sailing team is in third place 62 nautical miles (nm) to the north of CAMPER, a position which Chris Nicholson says he is confident his crew can defend against.

“We’re probably in the lightest breeze we will be in right now, for the next couple of days, but once we get into the trades, that will minimise the damage they (Groupama) can do,” he said.

“I think we’re going bleed a few miles, but hopefully we’ve got enough in the bank to still wriggle out further to the east,” he said. “We knew we’d have to pay up some time.

Team Sanya and Mike Sanderson are still in the mix, but have only Abu Dhabi Ocean behind them in their rear view mirror.

Two incidents overnight cost the Emirati team precious miles.

First they had to make a quick swerve round a long line of drift nets and deal with the unwelcome advances of an angry and aggressive fishing boat crew.

Shortly afterwards a large plank hit one of their rudders hard. Luckily the boat was only doing 11 knots and seems to have come off unscathed.

Along with everyone else Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing skipper Ian Walker has been keeping a close eye on PUMA’s northerly route.

“I’m starting to think they’re looking in a strong position right now,” he said. “I think we should know in a day and a half.

“But if he [Read] sails all the way up there and around the whole fleet then I will willingly buy him a drink,” said the British double Olympic medallist, who celebrated his 42nd birthday today.

It is unlikely the fleet will make the big turn south for another 1,000 nm, but for now they are enjoying some sunny sailing and reaching in smooth seas. Sunglasses have made their first appearance and waterproofs have been consigned to below decks, at least for the time being.

Position Report at 13:02:28 UTC:

www.VolvoOceanRace.com

A tour of the parish (from Groupama Sailing Team)

It's not yet time to link onto a direct course towards Auckland: the easterly monsoon system has been very disrupted by the arrival of a front rolling down from Japan and Groupama 4 is attempting to get around the northern edge of a zone of calms, whilst controlling the northerly option taken by the Americans. It promises to be a tricky weekend for Franck Cammas and his men, though they're managing to reap the rewards of their northerly separation.

The lord moves in mysterious ways… and the wind gods too at times! The fleet is still over 4,350 miles from the finish in Auckland, 600 miles to the North of the direct course… A route across the fields, bordering on a detour, appears to be the only option, right next to the island of Daito, way offshore of Okinawa. Since the crews passed Taiwan some three days ago, the main group has been heading East-North-East in a bid to bypass a zone of calms sprawled across the ocean between the Philippines and the Mariana archipelago. It's proving to be a real Way of the Cross for this procession, which is getting further and further away from the monsoon with the aim of hooking up with a new north-westerly breeze, which is taking its time to settle into position. The front rolling down from Japan isn't as forceful as forecast and will find it hard to clear the Tropic of Cancer. However, the descent down to the South-West is still set to begin tonight, local time, once the breeze shifts round to the North and then the North-East.

Happy birthday Charles!

“This Saturday there wasn't a lot of wind on the race zone: 8 to 10 knots of north-westerly, which will clock round to the North-East, enabling us to drop down towards Auckland. We've put in a fair amount of manœuvres (six headsail changes over the past 24 hours), but fortunately the conditions are calm as we're not going very fast and it's not wet on deck. We're trying to rack up as much sleep as possible to stock up on energy in case we need to go up on deck during standby, so as to deal with a squall or carry out a manœuvre. We're making the most of the time to give ourselves a scrub and dry out our things as we've had a lot of sunshine this afternoon (Japanese time)… It's my birthday tomorrow, 26 February, but I'm not thinking too much about it: it'll be the first time I've been at sea for it! I know my son's prepared a present for me, which is in my bag.”

Indeed there has been a succession of squalls with some real downpours being interrupted by some substantial wind shifts, before the sky finally clears. Franck Cammas and his men have made the most of the conditions to reposition themselves further North of the leading group so as they can hang a right the minute the front hits with its salutary breeze. Groupama 4 is now 55 miles to the North of Camper, which it had been sticking with for three days, and this separation should bear fruit before the weekend is out. Behind the two leaders, Abu Dhabi has also slipped in behind the French boat, whilst Sanya has managed to reposition herself in front of the Spanish. However, the danger could come from the far North, from whence Puma is hurtling along after a rather original route taking them across the East China Sea, amidst the Japanese archipelago of Ryu Kyu! Over a hundred miles above the leading pack, the Americans are being pushed along at speed by the front and are powering along at an average of nearly twenty knots, while Groupama 4 is now bordering on sixteen knots.

The tradewind expressway

However, it's worth nothing that although the fresh wind will finally enable the whole fleet to bend their course around to the South-East with pace, the easterly tradewinds are certainly not about to make their presence felt anytime soon! It would appear that there are still some roadworks along what is a somewhat pitted route, judging by the large zone of calms offshore of the Mariana islands. As such the progress ahead looks set to be chaotic, with a likely compression of the fleet at the toll gate formed by the islands of Micronesia. Indeed the fleet will certainly have to wait till they reach the Philippine enclave of Guam before the expressway becomes totally clear of meteorological obstacles.

In the meantime however, Groupama 4's position is favourable since she's continuing her gradual climb northwards to control Puma, which is slowing down the closer she gets to the main group, whilst the French boat is accelerating as she hooks onto the new north-westerly breeze. And though Abu Dhabi is on the same wavelength as Franck Cammas and his crew, the New Zealanders appear to be playing with fire by persevering with their easterly option, like Telefonica and Sanya: indeed there is still a zone of light airs in front of them, with a large accumulation of clouds laden down with rain… Life at around 26° North for the next few hours would appear to be a lot rosier then, but clearly the start of this fourth leg is surprising to say the least.

Blog from the Seas (by Amory Ross, MCM, PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG)

“I will take a week of these conditions as payment for that upwind [sailing].” - Michi Müller

LOCATION: 200 miles SSE of continental Japan (Kanoya) BOATSPEED: 22 KTS WINDSPEED: 19 KTS HEADING: 096-degrees SAILS: Full main, Fractional-0, Staysail

Two things were certain of 2012: The world was going to end, and PUMA Ocean Racing was going to sail north on Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race…f o r e v e r. Well, the world lives on and we’ve turned east! Incredible.

Mar Mostro’s compass reads near 90 all the time now and we’re taking advantage of some consistently flat-and-fast conditions to close reach east at around 18-to-22 knots. It feels great to finally be heading across the East China Sea and out into the Pacific. Sayonara Japan!

Digging in to the north was always the play for us, and though it felt like we would never be far enough, we’re here now, there’s good breeze to our east, and the time has come to cash in our “ups” to start taking back some of our [many] lost miles. But the transition from north to east comes with an uncomfortable level of anxiety.

We’ve already suffered the familiar weight of going it alone, and while we never once wrote ourselves off and are very much poised to pounce on the guys to our south, the threat of losing big still looms large. In that sense, looking at the position chart can be intimidating – and surely you all feel the same way – but we very well know now how quickly deficits can be erased with the right conditions and a little bit of patience.

Soooo, here we go. The trigger’s officially been pulled. We’ve done a great job staying positive so far, but now it’s time to have some fun; there’s plenty of that to catch up on, too!

- Amory