Volvo Ocean Race- For some shorts and t-shirts, for others squalls

by Various Volvo Ocean Race Competitors on 27 Feb 2009
Latest news from the Volvo Ocean race fleet:

TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 13 QFB: received 26.02.09 0911 GMT

There has been a sudden change in the decision making today. Instead of choosing lines based on satellite images, quikscats and model output, we've got an island in the way and it’s quite a big one - Fiji. Four hundred miles on the bow and it’s about 200 left to right as we look at it, so it has a huge bearing on how we sail the next two days.

We are at our tightest angles since the start now and the yacht feels more constrained than before - the guys above us have a slightly freer angle to the top of Vanua Levu than us, especially the Dragons, so we are holding our breath a bit!

Can't complain too much, we've had a great run the last 24hrs through some very unstable weather and have pulled the front runners back by a massive amount, to the stage of almost being in the same patch of water now.
Just got the last sched in at 07Z - has us in second, which is a bit of a shock - second maybe on distance to the finish via East Cape in NZ, but reality is a bit more complicated and we certainly don't feel in our hearts (or brains more importantly) that we are honestly in second yet.

Tonight's squall activity is just starting to get going now. Will be another busy night.

Adios amigos - that's two Spanish words now.

Tom Addis - navigator

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PUMA LEG FIVE DAY 13 QFB; received 26.02.09 0923 GMT

Having a tough time today. We seem to be out of the ‘squall zone’ or the nasty ones at least, and the sailing is settling down a bit.

We are still reaching along on port (12 days on one tack has to be a record) in about 12 knots of wind with Ericsson 3 two miles to windward and Fiji about 500 miles dead ahead. No significance to Fiji, it’s not a mark of the course or a scoring gate, just another stage of the journey to mentally tick off.

After that it's about 1000 miles to the scoring gate at New Zealand. I'm sure that a lot of New Zealanders in the fleet are lamenting the fact that we are not stopping there in this race. Maybe they are imagining the scene as we scoot by the northern tip of their country.... If it's daylight and we're near enough when we go through. Will boats come out and see us...? Will there be any familiar faces? This is me an Englishman imagining the scenario. The Kiwi's on this boat keep all the questions inside their heads.

Right now the sailing team on Il Mostro is head's down, digging a ditch. They are working the boat constantly and making adjustments as often as every 20 seconds. The most important control is the main sheet and this occupies two guys full time, one to trim and one to grind. In addition to spinning the handles, this crewman (the mainsheet grinder) will also make adjustments to the other mainsail controls - outhaul, cunningham, checkstay. With one guy stuck on the helm the fourth guy on watch is left to do all the running around, he controls the dagger boards, moves weight around, monitors the competition and generally keeps things running smoothly. And all this to just sail in a straight line. Any time that anything other than straight line sailing is needed, guys are brought up from the off watch. The number of extra guys needed can be as few as one or two people to help move something, or the whole crew to make a sail change.

So why am I having a tough day? It's probably got something to do with just how hard the guys are working right now..... The last thing they want to deal with is me sticking a camera in their faces ... ‘how does it feel to be sailing along on a boat?’..... ‘How are you handling the trip so far’' and other lame lines of questioning........

Having said that, a little while ago I spent a few moments on deck, chatting about various topics with Rob Salthouse. I was talking about my new super-duper infra-red see-in-the-dark camera light and he was telling me that he missed his kids and wished that he could bring them out here so that they could see how beautiful the night was. We both lamented that the folks at Sony had a long way to go until they could make a camera that would record a night like tonight, but then Rob commented that maybe that’s a good thing because everyone would be out here if they knew what it was like.

Maybe not such a tough day after all.

Rick Deppe - MCM

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ERICSSON 4 LEG FIVE DAY 13 QFB: received 26.02.09 1133 GMT

Hello from Ericsson 4.

At the moment we are sailing up-wind with 12 knots and flat seas. Shorts and t-shirt conditions. We are heading towards Fiji that is aprox. 400 miles. I've just finished my watch and the night was beautiful with lot of stars.
Today we also saw some whales, one of them, less than a boat length from us. They are beautiful animals and their size is impressive, but my memories are not all nice. During the last Volvo race, when we were doing the qualification with Brasil 1 sailing from Rio to Portugal, we hit one. The boat speed went from 12 knots to zero and I crashed against the main bulkhead inside the boat cracking three ribs. After that we still sailed for 10 days...Lets hope we don’t get any closer - although beautiful, they are a danger to us as we are to them

Some clouds are still in our way, but nothing compared with yesterday. Another hard day on Ericsson 4. Again we saw a good lead evaporate in just few hours...
Competition is very close. Puma and Ericsson 3 are now just 20 miles from us and Telefónica Blue has made some good gains today. Green Dragon is also making fast runs more to the east of the fleet. Everything is still open for the first scoring gate at latitude 36 south.

We've been sailing for 12 days and we still have 8,900 miles to the finish, but the rhythm on board is like we are doing a daily race.

Also today saw us sail over a seamount - so the depth went from unregistered on our equipment (well over several hundred metres) to just 28m of water! Who would have thought it in the middle of the pacific - especially as there is nothing else around - no atolls or reefs? It was ok; we did know it was there!
Today we finished with our Cape Horn bet. My guess was that we will be crossing on March 16th, but I hope I'm wrong and some good winds make us get there earlier...

Cheers

Joca Signorini - trimmer
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ERICSSON 3 LEG FIVE DAY 13 QFB: received 26.02.09 0915 GMT

The Squall-fighters

During the last couple of days I have learnt a lot about how we should deal most efficiently with these extremely shifty Doldrum conditions. Most of our sails have really narrow slots, but I have now found a setup that works all the spectra from 10 to 30 knots, even though the headsail will need to be slightly repaired every now and then…

We have been in a close fight with Puma the last couple of days, not really sure for how many days exactly how many since I completely lose track of time out here. But what I do know is that we were chasing them yesterday evening, and now they are chasing us.

It felt like they were a bit quicker than us in general. But it seems we handled the squalls better than them. When we prepared well and got the sails down and up in time before the big winds hit, Puma had to bear away to change and by that we managed to get in front.

It is tricky during the day to judge how long you should stay with a big sail when you see a big squall coming in. If you’re too late it is a big struggle and you lose a lot of height and there is a big risk of breaking the sail. During the night you can’t visualise and judge how bad the clouds will be. You only have the radar to make your bet.

Because of that we held back a bit during last night and kept our G1 up instead of hoisting the big masthead zero. All because we did not want to risk getting hit by a heavy gust and not being able to change sail in ti