Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 16 on board MAPFRE, Blair Tuke at the helm, 02 April, . - photo © Ugo Fonolla / Volvo Ocean Race
Dear [recipient name]
Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand e-magazine for April 3, 2018
The attrition rate continues in the Volvo Ocean Race, with several boats experiencing issues over the past couple of days.
Worst of these was Vestas 11th Hour Racing who dropped their rig, on Saturday, with a fracture occurring above the first set of spreaders.
In fact, it was a bad 24 hours for breakdowns.
Overall race leader MAPFRE pulled into a bay on the end of Cape Horn, where she was met by her support team to effect repairs to her mainsail which had split in half. A second task was to repair the laminate around the sail track on her mast.
It was a similar repair to that undertaken by AkzoNobel on Leg 3 of the race, after a muffed gybe in an awkward sea when they were within 8nm of the Ice Gate.
Third-placed AkzoNobel had an issue with her canting keel box, which needed to be checked - a process which required the Volvo 65 to be tipped on her beam ends while a crew member, Brad Farrand (NZL), was lowered over the side on a halyard.
The issue was apparent - one of the covers for the keel box was torn in half allowing water in under pressure into the keel box - which normally has some residual water in it and is completely sealed. But is not supposed to operate without the keel flaps, and the crew will no doubt be taking it a little easier over the final 400nm of the Leg to Itajai.
Turn the Tide on Plastics had what turned out to be a minor problem with one spreader - when a grub screw worked loose allowing the spreader to move aft, but the rig was never in danger.
SHK Scallywag has made landfall on the Chilean coast, stopping at the port of Puerto Montt, Chile, which is almost at the end of the road on the western coast of Chile and has an airport. They have retired from Leg 7.
In the 2011/12 Volvo Ocean Race, both Camper and Abu Dhabi also made a pit stop at Puerto Montt after a rough ride through the Southern Ocean, and neither was in any shape to make a rounding of Cape Horn without first undergoing repairs.
There has been no announcement yet of an inquiry into the tragic loss of John Fisher overboard. However, it is expected that task will be added to the already running inquiry into the issues of sailing Volvo 65's in high traffic areas at night.
With the issues that have occurred on Leg 7 there must be some re-consideration of starting the Auckland - Brazil leg so late in the season and heading into the Southern Ocean in the autumn, or early winter.
Looking back into Peter Blake's day, the 1981/82 race in which Ceramco New Zealand competed, the fleet left Auckland on Boxing Day for the Southern Ocean and South America.
The next race, the 1985/86 Whitbread RTWR, when Blake skippered Lion NZ, the third leg of the race started on February 15, rounding Cape Horn on March 5, 1985.
The last three races have left Auckland for the Southern Ocean over a month later on March 18. This year Team Brunel rounded the notorious landmark 12 days later - which speaks to the much faster passages made on the haul through the Southern Ocean.
The 2011/12 Volvo Ocean Race fleet also took a hammering. That was the last year of the Volvo 70, and only two of the fleet finished in Itajai, Brazil without having suspended racing or having to nurse damaged boats.
By all accounts, the weather this year was worse than the two previous editions.
The other issue is that the skills of the crews, along with improvements in gear and technology, have increased exponentially and they can now drive the boats harder and faster for sustained periods than before.
The change is underlined by the time from Auckland to the Horn, which in 1985/86 took Lion NZ 18 days. This year Team Brunel sailed the same course in just 12 days over arguably a longer distance - there was no Ice Gate in Blake's day and they sailed down to 58degrees South (and passed within a few metres of icebergs in 150 metres visibility).
It has become reasonably clear now that the crews can take as much or more punishment than the boats. That situation has the design and structure engineers searching for definitive answers as to where the limits really lie.
Add into the equation the fact that the boats are being sailed at consistently high speeds for sustained periods of time, and with the crews assisted by sophisticated weather routing.
But the real issue is when the crews make a mistake, and the boat wipes out - either with a nosedive, a broach or Chinese gybe, or all of the above, then the strain on rigs, and boats in general, is horrendous. It's also action stations/danger time for the crew on deck.
While safety factors can be built in, no-one really knows what the loads are and where the limits lie. All the crews know is that they are either still in one piece after wiping out, or they have sustained a major breakage, and their leg is probably over.
What is not understood by the armchair fans is that the gear can be strained in these sort of episodes, and then inexplicably lets go sometime further down the track.
In many ways, it is fortunate that the timing of the next race is now somewhat in limbo. Clearly, there needs to be a timeout to look at several factors - being the timing of the event; the length of the race which has grown from 27,000nm in Blake's day to 45,000nm in the current course; and the design and engineering on the boats. Safety and crew protection is now a significant factor needing to be reviewed, just as it was in the America’s Cup after the incidents in 2012/13.
In this edition, we have more coverage on the America's Cup bases. From what we hear today Viaduct Harbour Holdings will not be opposing the new plan.
The Toyota NZ Optimist Nationals are underway in Picton with an entry of 190 sailors from three countries competing. Last time the event was sailed in Picton, it was won by Peter Burling. Has a new sailing superstar been found in 2018? Hopefully not, Australian sailors took the top two places in the Open Fleet.
The NZL Sailing Team are having their first outing in the Princess Sofia Trophy sailed in Palma, Spain. First racing was overnight. The Kiwis didn't cover themselves in glory - aside from top three placings by the 2016 Olympic medalists.
In Bermuda, we go down memory lane with the foiling Moth Worlds. There weren’t any Kiwi sailors competing in the 41-strong fleet, but the video is worth watching for the shots from Bermuda and Randy "Bangin' the Corners" Cunningham's inimitable commentary.
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Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
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