Volvo Ocean Race - Cape Horn a thing of the past now for the Falklands

by Various Volvo Ocean Race competitors on 19 Mar 2009
Latest news from the fleet as the boats head to Rio, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Nearly all the news is about passing Cape Horn, a huge milestone for everyone sailing this leg. Onboard Puma, its time to head to the Falklands. Read on....

ERICSSON 3 LEG FIVE DAY 34 QFB: received 19.03.09 1018 GMT

Hi there,

We had a BIG celebration passing Cape Horn. In 25 knots breeze with the big spinnaker up, we smoked cigars, had a few sips of rum, joked and had more fun than on this leg to date.

It has just been such a tough leg that there has not been time or energy to waste on anything else other than trying to sail the boat at 100 percent in the right direction. But yesterday, all the held-back happiness was released at once when we passed the Horn leading the fleet after having started behind the others due to our ‘hole in the hull’ on the previous leg.

Just after that, we tried to sail through the convergence zone off the southeast Argentinean coast, and parked there for a few hours before we got going again. Very nervous times on deck for Magnus Olsson, who is not exactly of the ‘cold, calm and quiet’ personality type! But as the guys behind parked as well, it was actually quite welcome, we could sleep without bouncing around for the first time in a while.

It is nice to go into the last week of racing with an advantage of 50 miles, but it is not a very comfortable lead because we are sailing through this area of high pressure bubbles. My biggest concern is the high we will have to negotiate in two to three day’s time. It can easily become a parking spot. Then of course the light breeze as we get close to Rio. But already tonight we will have to try to get ahead of another light patch developing between the two highs to our north and south. It looks like we may just manage that.
We just had to back down the boat twice to get rid of kelp hanging on our keel, daggerboard and rudders. It is still quite cold, but from the satellite pictures it looks like we will get into warmer water tomorrow. The cold water is actually helping us north, as it means we are still in the north-flowing current bringing cold water from the south. Jens Dolmer agreed under doubt to give our sleeping bag another day before we tough it out and remove the warm part of it.

Time to eat my second pack of noodles for the day, once again I was last to the food pot and nothing left. Someone must be trying to eat heaps before we go empty.

To everyone sending emails to the team and leaving messages on the web site:
Lots of thanks for all the support in the early stages of this leg, and the greetings in the later stages of the race, we really appreciate it!!

Aksel Magdahl - navigator

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PUMA LEG FIVE DAY 34 QFB: received 19.03.09 0025 GMT

Flat water and a bit less sting to the breeze greeted the fine yacht today as we travel north towards Brazil. Still one dilemma though. What is it with these damn islands always being in the way! Fiji on the other side, which we had to cut through (which seems like a lifetime ago) and now the Falklands. There is a big ocean out here and we are magnets to land.

Life onboard has taken a significant turn for the more liveable, even though we are crawling towards Rio at this point. Our sleigh ride ran out about 100 miles from Cape Horn and since, we have had flat seas and light breezes which have done one thing in a big way: made for some incredibly sound sleeping!! Maybe the deepest sleep I can ever remember having, when Capey (Andrew Cape) woke me to go on deck for a sail change this morning, I had absolutely no idea where I was. Couldn't find any of my gear (which was right in front of me). I guess I could have been hung over from that sip of rum at the Horn. Don't think so.

This is going to be a tricky bit of the race. Each three hour sched is showing huge gains and losses for each of us. Believe me there is a method to the madness, as boats aren't exactly taking three hours off to rest. The spacing of the boats is proving to have just enough room to create your own little weather situation that can be significantly different from the other boats. Kind of a yo-yo effect. Sometimes you are going down on the string, but nearly always you will come back up as well. Objective is to have more ups than downs. At least for IL Mostro.

We actually had hatches open and a bit of air out today and people are looking and acting like completely different humans. Amazing what it feels like not to be wet 24 hours a day. I don't think any of us are going to miss that for a while. A change of socks and undies was a major highlight for me personally. You see, we are dealing with the little things in life out here. For example one of our snacks was a real granola bar today for the first time in the trip. It tasted so good that my eyes started to well up. Not really, but it was really good.

So, game on from here to the end. We are going to need to get lucky for sure and we will need to know what to do with the luck if it gets thrown in our lap. For sure we help make our own luck but, with that said, opportunity is needed.

You can throw that opportunity our way any time you wish.

Kenny Read - skipper

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GREEN DRAGON LEG FIVE DAY 33 QFB: received 18.03.09 1808 GMT

Who would have thought at the outset of this project that we would round Cape Horn on St Patrick’s Day? You couldn't have scripted it better.

Amazingly both Justin (Justin Slattery) and Damian (Damian Foxall) have done this before onboard the maxi cat Cheyenne - how freaky is that?

It was not an easy passage this time with 30 - 40 knot westerly gales and a large and disturbed sea state on the continental shelf that bounds the Horn. We took a cautious approach given the conditions, and stood 30 miles offshore to avoid the worst of the waves and to make sure we didn't have to gybe to round the Horn.

We didn't get to see the actual Cape because we were so far away, but had we been closer it was a dark, rainy night so visibility was next to zero. By first light this morning we had sailed the 100 miles to the Straits of Le Maire, a 16 mile wide channel between the mainland Chile and Staten Island (Argentina).

We were blessed with flat water and a fair tide (four knots) to usher us into the Atlantic. Here we celebrated our rounding of the Cape. We toasted our rounding with a bottle of Norwegian Linie Aquavit given to us by Wallenius Wilhelmsen and a Cuban cigar or two - thanks Odd Egil. I had my best sleep of the trip immediately after!

We toasted our rounding and I took time to reflect on all those who had lost their lives trying to round the Cape in years gone by. I also remembered Glyn Charles, a friend and member of our 1996 GB Olympic Sailing Team, who died in the 1998 Sydney Hobart disaster. As a skipper you feel the responsibility for boat and crew at all times and I am a very happy man to have crossed the 4500 miles of open Pacific Ocean and rounded the Horn safely.

The boat and crew are in great shape and able to sail a hundred per cent and push hard in the hope that the weather gives us an opportunity to make a move and get on the podium in Rio. Finishing this leg will be a great achievement for the whole team but it would be far sweeter if we could get on the podium in Rio.

So far we have sailed 10,500 miles in 33 days and we now have 2,000 to go. We are heading north and will soon be feeling the warmth of the sun again. The old hands say it warms up by the Falklands and I am prepared to admit for me that cannot come soon enough.

Ian Walker - skipper

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ERICSSON 4 LEG FIVE DAY 33 QFB: received 18.03.09 1337 GMT

Well, I’m glad that bit is over. What a huge relief to have rounded the Horn and be hea