The stopover in Cochin at the end of leg two of the Volvo Ocean Race from Cape Town was short but very sweet. It was a sensational two weeks in India, the first time the race has visited this country, and without exception, everyone was sorry to leave.
But leave they did, in a light sea breeze of around five to six knots on 13 December, bound for Christmas in Singapore. Or so they thought.
Leg three, at 1950 nautical miles was estimated to take around eight days to complete, but today, day nine, the leaders still have 220 miles to run.
Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) led the fleet across the downwind start line but it was a lead short-lived and soon Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) took up the lead.
Leg three will be remembered for its constantly changing leaderboard as the light and difficult conditions saw different leaders almost every three hours.
By day three, 15 December, the fleet was still racing close to the line between two waypoints set south of Sri Lanka to keep the fleet south of the coast and away from the possible intrusion by pirates, but this meant that the eight boats had to battle an adverse current of up to 3.5 knots in very little breeze.
There was more breeze north, in the Bay of Bengal, but the fleet could not get there, and when they could, they faced a 1000 nm beat to the scoring gate, a line set directly north from the island Palau We at the entrance to the Malacca Strait.
Wouter Verbraak, Kosatka Team Russia’s Dutch navigator put this distance into perspective when he said, “it is a far as Miami to New York, slightly shorter than Sydney to Auckland, or from Holland to the very most southern tip of Italy. Wow! That’s more than a two-day drive.”
“Welcome to the beat from hell,” wrote Kenny Read, skipper of PUMA, on day four as the fleet continued to struggle against the strong current and light headwinds. Green Dragon’s skipper, Ian Walker/GBR said that if there were a prize for tenacity, then his crew would deserve it.
“We do not have the speed of the Ericsson, PUMA or Telefónica boats and it is not easy to see them putting miles on us whenever we are near them. We have been sailing for hours, making no more than two knots and, often, nothing towards the finish.”
By day 5, 17 December, Telefónica Blue had kept the lead, but found themselves strung out to the south and in a very vulnerable position, separated from the rest of the fleet by over 100 nautical miles. Bouwe Bekking and his men believed they could make a gain with an expected southeasterly windshift.
It was a nail-biting situation, waiting to see if the windshift would materialise. If it didn’t, they would be in serious trouble. The crew was trying to be patient. “It is a matter of breathing in and out and staying calm,” said Bekking.
The fleet was hard on the wind, not the fastest point of sailing, and the gate was still 516nm ahead of them. Back in third position, a proper dogfight was taking place as Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR), Ericsson 3 (Anders Lewander/SWE) and Telefónica Black (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) scrapped.
On day six, Telefónica Blue lucked in, the wind shifted in her favour and they were handed a ‘get out of jail free’ card. But Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) was breathing down their necks.
The sailing was very wet, and not, according to PUMA’s watch captain, Sidney Gavignet from France, ‘super fun’.
A rather disheartened Green Dragon crew, whose boat hated the conditions, followed Telefónica Black but at least they had a good buffer over Team Russia (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) and Delta Lloyd (Roberto Bermudez/ESP). Both were safely over 100 miles behind until damage to Delta Lloyds keel ram forced her out of the race and saw her limping quietly towards Singapore.
On day 7, 19 December, Ericsson 4 pipped Telefónica Blue at the post and was first round the scoring gate to add another four points to her tally. Ericsson 3 was third. Although disappointed at not being first through the gate, Bekking and his crew were pleased with the second place points.
Now into the Malacca Straits, in a cruel twist, the fleet found itself still sailing into headwinds, and Telefónica Blue had slipped down the order to third place. The crews were tired of ‘tacking and stacking’ on every windshift in the light and fluky conditions. “Nothing is worse than tacking, only to find the wind has shifted back again and you have to go through the process all over again. You only get one or two of those before the crew has had enough,” said Ian Walker.
Today, day nine, and it is looking possible that the fleet may arrive in Singapore in time for Christmas after all. But nothing is certain and a nail-biting finish is in store.
At 1000 GMT, it was all change again and Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) snatched back the lead. Ericsson 3 (Anders Lewander/SWE) had moved into second place, just a mile behind and PUMA had clawed her way up to third, just four miles astern. Former leader Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) had slipped to fourth, as the pack takes it in turns to apply the pressure.
All the teams had activated their AIS system, which is mandatory for racing in the Malacca Strait. This device sends the direction and speed of each racing yacht to all commercial shipping within a 20 nautical mile radius of each yacht.
Wouter Verbraak, Dutch navigator on Kosatka Team Russia says, “We appear on their screens as a dot with a tag: ‘Kosatka racing yacht, limited manoeuvrability’. So far, this has worked like a very powerful insect repellent. None of the cargo ships want to have anything to do with us, and whilst we are blasting (or drifting like last night) along, the armada of cargo ships magically opens up in front of us! Brilliant.”
Ericsson 4 had been reeling in Telefónica Blue, but once darkness fell, the blue boat had the upper hand again. Skipper Bouwe Bekking says that his team often seems to make their best gains in the hours of darkness. Ericsson 4 is sailing in ‘light mode’ having relinquished comforts such as mattresses, sleeping bags and some clothing. They even considered taking a smaller crew. “We felt that it was still early enough in the race and the leg was still long enough not to go too extreme, so we will still have all our crew onboard and a reasonable spares package,” says watch captain Stu Bannatyne/NZL.
PUMA is back in the race and right in touch with the leaders, but, after chipping away so hard, earlier this morning, their fairy tale came to an abrupt, but temporary halt when they parked about 30 miles off the coast of Malaysia and watched the rest of the fleet sail up behind them.
“Telefónica Blue got back around us and we are completely drifting as we speak, “wrote Kenny Read at 0408 GMT this morning. “Amazingly, Ericsson 4 never has really gotten reeled in by their own personal ‘glass off’ of no wind, not yet anyway. My guess is that all our times will come at some point,” he said. Perhaps that point has now arrived?
At the tale end of the fleet, Delta Lloyd (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) was making good progress. The team has managed to tack the boat gently and are confident that they will reach the finish under sail, but about a day behind the rest.
“We were a bit nervous about our first tack,” writes navigator Matt Gregory. “We had to sail around an island yesterday afternoon. We made it very slowly and had three guys with their heads in the keel ram compartments as we rolled through the tack. There were some crunching and cracking sounds from the broken side of the boat, but all seems to be OK,” he said.
Based on current conditions, computer routeing software is indicating that the first boat could finish tomorrow around evening GMT that will give the crew time for some last minute Christmas shopping!
Leg Three Day Nine: 1000 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) DTF 220 nm
Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) +1
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +4
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +7
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) +28
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +49
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +60
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +203
Scoring Gate Order
Ericsson 4 (4 points)
Telefónica Blue (3.4 points)
Ericsson 3 (3 points)
PUMA (2.5 points)
Telefónica Black (2 points)
Green Dragon (1.5 points)
No comments:
Post a Comment