Boatmail- Leg 4, Day 14 - Tricky times ahead

by Various VOR Boat Scribes on 5 Mar 2006 From: ABN AMRO TWO QFB LEG FOUR DAY 14
Sent: 04 March 2006 20:46
Subject: Crew Log 04/03/06

Hello.

I think for the first time this leg I'm sitting here wondering what to write about. To be quite honest it's a magnificent thing as it means the last 24 hours have been without stress, hassle or incident possibly for the first time this leg! Each sched that has come in has been a joy to read, the boat is going fast and the tactics are straight forward - quite literally in fact as we have been on the same heading for nearly the last 36 hours.

That is not to say that we haven't had to throw in a few sail changes into the mix but even these have gone well and are par for the course. They have been attacked with fresh enthusiasm as we have been steadily climbing the rankings as we do the 'buffalo girls' on the fleet and slowly go round the outside. However the race is far form over, with a ridge of high pressure, a low pressure system and the typical light winds off the Brazilian coast to content with, there is certainly going to be plenty of opportunities to sprout a few more grey hairs around the temples. All the more reason to enjoy it while it lasts, another 18 hours maybe...

Having had a nice 24 hours it has allowed me to turn to things of a more domestic nature, more specifically how the hell to dry my right boot out. However, in the still chilly climate of 50 degrees south it has proved to be an exercise in futility and I am forced to wait until we get to more temperate latitude. This is all the more disappointing seeing as I have managed to successfully dry my not-so-waterproof waterproof socks by shoving them in my sleeping bag each time a grab some sleep.

Still, if I have time to worry about such minor things life can't be all bad!!!

Until tomorrow,

Cheers,

Si Fi. Simon Fisher - navigator

From: MOVISTAR QFB LEG FOUR DAY 14
Sent: 04 March 2006 00:59
13 miles to go Ushuaia. The sail in to the Beagle Channel would have been way more enjoyable if we weren't still in a race. It must have been the only day of the year that there was a blue sky. Of course the wind was coming right on the nose with puffs up to 40 knots in the beginning of the canal, then they eased of to a steady 25knots.

Most of the day we have been using our #4 jib, and the main remained down. We can't sail faster than 10 knots, because in case we hit a wave (and there are plenty) the pressure gets to high on the repair we did, and water starts coming in again. Another issue is that the connection from the rams to the keel head is sealed by rubber manchets, and of course the water is trying to come through there as well. Luckily we had extra manchets with us, so these were installed as an extra safety margin to prevent water coming into that way. I am very happy that we spent some extra kilos in this area, and would like to invite the other competitors to at least have a look at our design, as this worked well even under the tremendous water pressure.

Stu Bannatyne is coming here for the 2nd time in his life, (dismasted with Silk Cut), again with mixed feelings.

We all know that we are still in contention for 2nd and 3rd place overall and that is our goal and we will work hard for this. We know we can bounce back and have shown this again on this leg. As far as I know we had the best 24 hour run of the fleet, 549.7 miles in 24 hours, and this would have gone even more up if we hadn't broken down.

We will try to lift the boat out tonight, and have a look at the extent of the damage, and start from there on. The Spanish America’s Cup team has assisted us again with some of their boatbuilding staff led by Javier Mendez, a big thanks to all of you to be here in record time. As well a thank you to the two locals, Roxana Diaz and Jonothan Selby, who have arranged everything.

And a big thanks to crew off the Chilean navy vessel, who have escorted us all the way without us requiring this. And the final thanks to the Argentinean navy vessel that joined us halfway down the channel.

Not sure if I will manage to report in tomorrow, but will do my best to keep everybody updated of the progress of movistar
Cheers,

Bouwe Bekking - skipper



From: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN QFB LEG FOUR DAY 14
Sent: 04 March 2006 03:18
Position: 51,55.95S , 56,10.24W
Speed: 7 knots, Course: 33 deg.

We are slipping along at 7 knots in 4 knots of wind thanks to our Code 0. These powerful sails make light air incredibly less painful. We are just passing east of the Falklands. Our router has us staying quite east for the first two thirds of the leg to Rio.

The five day forecast shows a very tricky leg to Rio. We will have about 5 transitions, leaving one weather system and entering or being over taken by another, to deal with. The first was yesterday after rounding the Cape. ABN1 and Pirates sailed into a stalled bit of cloud that was hanging off the land. The both of us parked pretty firmly while the others sailed up in the 30 knots of wind around the Cape. We took a huge hit on one sked, 50 miles to Brasil and about 0 to each of Ericsson and ABN2. Then as Brasil got to the area that we parked in, the cloud band moved off to the east and they were able to slip in along the coast and go through the La Maire Strait, all the while enjoying more wind and more lifted direction. They paid a bit back today as they had to come down east to go around the Falklands like the rest of us. Tonight we are going through a small bubble of high pressure.

The wind has dropped steadily all afternoon and now we are literally coasting along. There appears to be no wind on the water, it is a clear night and you can see the reflection of the stars in the water like a plate of glass. Really a pretty night and the stars are so bright when you are out here away from the loom of any city. Again, and experience few ever get.

Tomorrow and Sunday should be good mileage days as we pick up westerlies again early in the morning. Sunday night we will sail through a high pressure ridge. This could be another moment of reshuffling. After that we pick up southeasterlies on the west side of a low pressure cell that is forming right now near Buenos Aires and will drift out to sea over the next 48 hours.

Don't know if you are that much into weather so sorry for the information over load if you aren't. But that is basically what I do. I, along with Jules Salter, have to analyze the information we get, decide if it is accurate, if not, adjust the models, then run the right weather through the routing software which then spits out a bunch of numbers. We then take all that and make a strategy that includes the location of our competitors what they are likely to do or be able to do from their position with the weather that they will have.

Apart from all the work, I caught up on some sleep today, 24 hour sessions and worked on my sail cross over chart, making notes on what we have learned about our sails and when to use them, angles and wind speeds.

I also treated my self to my other, fresh, pair of base layer. Yes, that's right; I have been wearing the same clothes for 12 days. I gave myself a shower of sorts, lots of baby wipes, and then I slid into the fresh smelling long johns and top. Man, what a difference that made. I still have the same socks because I have a complicated sock system and I have only one set up. That is a wool inner sock, a Gore-Tex sock, and then another wool sock. I had to run light weight boots on this leg as the really heavy duty boots, which are made of rubber, are too small for my feet and the cold was going right through them. So I took a bit of a gamble wearing my Musto Gore-Tex inshore boots in the Southern Ocean, but I made it!

We compile our work list onboard the boat as the leg goes on so today I sent that off tour shore team so they can ge