Volvo News- Slogging upwind, halyard breadown

by Various Volvo Ocean Race competitors on 19 Dec 2008
On Day 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race, the boats are heading to Singapore in hot,humid and squally conditions.

PUMA LEG THREE DAY 6 QFB: received 18.12.08 0956 GMT

The Bay of Bengal. Bringing these boats here for this leg is like using a Ferrari for a Tractor Pull. Slogging upwind, tacking on every shift for days. In fact, for one 24-hour period we had 51 squalls come through bringing rain, shift, no shift, wind, no wind etc. You get my drift. Mix in the heat and humidity and you have a real glamorous sailing spot at this moment in time.

Great news is the conditions are evening out and the squalls are far less frequent. In fact the fleet is lining up and starting to leg it out for the northwest corner of Indonesia and Sumatra. We were joking on the rail that every place we now talk about - Sumatra for example - we have never even used the words before never mind been here. Wild new world for boat racing.

The good news is that things are starting to at least normalise out here a bit. The bad news is it is about to get really strange once we enter the Strait of Malacca. This is the channel between Indonesia to the south and Malaysia to the north. Here the fun really begins. It is one of, if not the, most used commercial shipping lane in the world. There is an Indonesian navy who is rumoured to stop random boats and request fees to pass through. Potential outright piracy. And supposedly heaps of fishing boats, which may be lit or unlit, with lines or nets. Let the fun begin.

On board the fine yacht, we have gotten back in touch with the leaders and are now running fourth. Quite a number of changes on this leg. Just when a pattern would start to develop everything would change. We currently have Telefónica Black just behind us and Ericsson 3 to weather- both within sight and, as usual, it is full on. Never a dull moment.

On board we are surviving the plastic fork situation barely. Thanks to all the second graders’ suggestions for what to use. The problem is that not a single one of their suggestions is actually aboard the boat. Like soup can tops and aluminium foil. Great ideas if we were on a normal boat in normal conditions. One small problem that may be related to our plastic fork salutation or not is that a pretty good case of diarrhoea has overcome the boat, to the point that our toilet pump broke from overuse! Talk about a disaster. Fortunately, Dr Falcone is on the case and hopefully we can shake this before the entire team takes their turn. The stern railing is getting a lot of use these days...if you get my drift.

The questions are starting to come to the nav station a little more frequently concerning our projected ETA. We have several crewmembers flying home to be with families and several of us have families who will anxiously be in Singapore hoping to celebrate the holidays with all the sailors out here on the water. Hope the Straits are kind to us. That is all I want for a Christmas present this year.

Kenny Read - skipper
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ERICSSON 3 LEG THREE DAY 6 QFB: received 18.12.08 1519 GMT

It does not take much to make 11 primitive guys happy, just a little jump from 6th to 3rd in the standings. Even Gustav (Gustav Morin MCM), who has a stomach infection, has been seen smiling today!

We basically always positioned ourselves on the preferred side of the different medium sized cloud clusters, which enabled us to play some huge wind shifts through the night yesterday. When we got in touch with Green Dragon, we went just a little further than them before a tack, and slowly passed them sailing in a better shift. It actually gave us most of the distance we have on them now. It was difficult with wind shifts not forecast, but satellite pictures helped a lot in this largest thunderstorm area I have ever seen.

Now the question is: how far north is too far? We can ALMOST sail straight towards the waypoint on port tack, but in the end, it looks like we will end up in the light spot south of the scoring gate. It is very expensive to get north at this stage, but expect us to try to utilise some small shifts to get up on that layline.

There will also be plenty of boat-on-boat tactics going on. We just tacked twice to cover Puma on a small shift. Martin Krite is very angry with me now - more than normal - as tacking seems to have the same effect on him as a red cloth has on a bull! So he has hidden my iPod before he went to sleep after the stacking fest. I guess that the ‘Full Stack Double Tack’ within an hour on his off-watch justifies it a little bit.

Best from E3

Aksel Magdahl - navigator

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TELEFÓNICA BLACK LEG THREE DAY 6 QFB: received 18.12.08 1335 GMT

Hi all

The last 24 hour have seen us lose a couple of positions in the fleet, which is nothing to be surprised with considering we have been sailing for more than 12 hours with the wrong headsail, because of the breakdown of the genoa halyard.

We were considering the possibility of getting up the mast to place an external lock but the call was made to wait until this morning, as conditions, mainly the waves, were a bit hazardous to get a man to the top of the mast at night. So the night passed with the J4 instead of the J2, and as dawn came, and with Puma steaming on top of us, with our longed awaited J2, we bore off and took David Vera up to fix the external lock, with complete success. And it means that we made the correct decision, you know, safety first. When we ended up, Puma was 3 miles away, but this is just a very long distance run... and we guys on board are the first to be concerned about it.

The positions are so close that it is going to be a very close approach to the scoring gate, and we to the south expect a slow and continuous shift to the gate. Wouldn't it be great?

So we keep on a nice beat to the Pulau We island scoring gate, with 340 miles to go, and then, the amusement park awaits us!

Cheers from TELEFÓNICA NEGRO

Mikel Pasabant - MCM

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ERICSSON 4 LEG THREE DAY 6 QFB: received 18.12.08 1050 GMT

Hi! We are now 330 miles from the scoring gate and all the boats are really close. We are trying hard to gain some miles on Telefónica Blue and keep our distance from the others. At the moment, we have 16-20 knots of wind and we are sailing in a fast up wind mode.

Life on board has not been easy. Down below it’s really warm and we are glad that we have fans in our bunks! On deck has been also very warm and if we are not wet because of the waves and the rains, once you put your gear on you start to get very sweaty... But, we all know that we are going to miss a lot this kind of weather on next leg to Qingdao!

Although this is one of the shortest legs during the race, our trip has not been not quick. We already have had a look in some of our food bags and prepared to have our Christmas dinner onboard, in case we have some delay in our previous ETA. Some of the guys are not happy, as from now we have a few less snacks and some meals have got smaller. We all hope that we get some good winds at the Malacca Strait and that we arrive in time to have a proper Christmas dinner!

Good winds
Joca Signorini

Also today saw Jules turn 40! He was his usual flamboyant and jolly self, happily sat at his nav desk in his pants (must be turning Brazilian!). Not sure what will happen with the approaching mid life crisis -I doubt the Harley Davidson and leather jacket will be enough for Jules after going round the world. I’m sure his mid-life will be more likely to involve a comfortable sofa and plenty of Coronation Street, a nice cup of tea and a fish finger sandwich.... Hold on a second - I think he is already having it.

Guy Salter - MCM

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GREEN