Volvo OR- Delta Lloyd suffers forestay cover damage, an injury on E3

by Various Volvo Ocean Race Competitors on 24 Jan 2009

(l-r) Tense time for navigator Simon Fisher, skipper Bouwe Bekking and meteorologist Tom Addis onboard Telefonica Blue Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race http://www.volvooceanrace.org

News from the Volvo Ocean Race boats.

DELTA LLOYD LEG FOUR DAY 6 QFB: received 23.01.09 1151 GMT
Just five hours after Green Dragon broke her forestay; our forestay cover was damaged during a headsail peel. The crew was able to cut loose part of the cover and we had to drop the foresail to do that. This cost us valuable time in this part of the leg.

Around noon we passed the auxiliary waypoint ‘South Rock’, around 185 miles west of Manila (Philippines) and now we are heading for the Philippine coast to do another tack. Winds have picked up some strength and we’re now in some 20 knots NNE’ly breeze for the next day or so.

At the mark, we had worked our position up to the fourth place. Not too bad for the moment. From there on, the waves started growing. We are aiming for the lower waves near the shore. Being aware of what is to come, we do not want to waste too much energy here.

Early in the evening, we were already banging against two to three metre waves and had to ease the pressure a bit by changing to the J4 and one reef in the main. As a relative rooky, I have deep respect for the guys on deck who fix this.

Good night from a bouncing DLYD.

Frits Koek - navigator
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TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FOUR DAY 6 QFB: received 23.01.09 1426 GMT
Hi there,

A straightforward day today. It started with us sailing upwind (much the same as yesterday in fact). The breeze then started to build, then it got dark and then it got windy. We are now crashing upwind in 25-30 knots of breeze. The boat is launching off waves and lurching around as it powers upwind, making it rather difficult to type! If you could see how long it has taken me to write this much and then correct all the mistakes you would see what I am getting at... It is a bit like trying to type on your computer whilst in a 4x4 driving off road!

From here on in, the next 24 hours are going to be about good seamanship as much as good tactics as the wind builds more and more. It is going to be all- important to keep our boat in one piece. We have already had a little bit of drama when a lashing on the jib halyard broke. This meant Daryl Wislang/NZL had to go up the rig to retrieve the halyard, which proved to be no mean feat in the building seaway. Our problems though were swiftly resolved and we were back underway with minimal losses to our rivals. It proved a good reminder, though, of how easily things can break and that we need to look after our boat over the next couple of days.

I think I will leave it that today, now time for some sleep!

Cheers,

Simon Fisher - navigator

Jordi Calafat is fine trimming the main while catching up with Green Dragon at the start of leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race © Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race http://www.volvooceanrace.org

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ERICSSON 3 LEG FOUR DAY 6 QFB: received 23.01.09 1312 GMT
Frustration and nail torture!

It has been some frustration onboard today. We have lost a lot of miles from our decision to go outside the ‘dangerous ground area’ and we are struggling to get back.

At one stage today, we even felt we were really slow and we were ripping our hair out, trimming and trimming to try to figure out what we could do better.
It was like a flashback from the start when Puma, Telefónica and Ericsson 4 easily slipped away from us just by better boatspeed.

'When you are sailing the boat like you usually do and the performance numbers are good, but still you feel slow, you get really frustrated, Magnus Olsson says and continues: 'You start to try new things, which can be both bad and good.'

We felt a bit better when we spotted Ericsson 4 and could compare our speed with them, now we at least now that we are as fast as they are.

Since the start of this race, we have had quite a lot of injuries onboard. The latest one happened yesterday. Magnus Olsson managed to get his thumb stuck in the runner when he was trying to adjust the lines, at the same time as it was released. He did not scream but, with a very thin voice, he asked someone to grind the runner back on again so he could get his finger out.

He was quite lucky to get away with some loss of blood, a broken nail and some swelling. He could just as well have lost the top of the finger.

‘Doctor Mason’ (Richard Mason/NZL) did some analyzing of the injury straight away and, after some consultation with our team doctor over the phone and after sending him some pictures of it, they decided that the nail had to be removed.

Magnus was trying to get away but ‘Dr Mason’ forced him down in a bunk to pull it out. Martin Krite was nursing and supported by injecting painkiller into Magnus’ thumb, a quite tricky manoeuvre in the wavy conditions. But everything went smoothly and after Mason sacrificed the nail to King Neptune, we are now hoping for some luck to bring us up to the top squad again.

Gustav Morin - MCM