We saw this leg as a good opportunity to get a podium place as we did not expect any hard running conditions, our known ‘Achilles heel’. We had ‘no excuse to lose’ as Dennis Conner used to say. In front of us we had a long upwind struggle in NE trade winds, which should do us, fine we thought…
The first night we did fine and found ourselves in the leading group next morning. But, someone up there did not like us, as the light breeze seemed to turn only us in a bad direction. But, we fought back during the reach across to the first waypoint SW of Sri Lanka. As we stayed low in the NE fading breeze, we caught up and rounded close behind Ericsson 4, Telefónica Blue and Puma.
Like everybody else, we had to fight an unknown enemy along the southern part of Sri Lanka. It was not the Tasmal Tigers but instead a very, at least for us, unknown current. Like the Gulf Stream it was rushing, often at 3 knots in the middle of the ocean! We going east, current going west…
Going upwind in light air against a current of that force is like walking in deep mud, you are going forward very slowly. Still we managed for a while being second behind our so-successful teammates on Telefónica Blue who made a brave move going east from Sri Lanka instead of the more ‘normal’ Northerly route, which the rest of us took.
All looked well until we really got stuck in a bad cloud and the before so-unlucky Ericsson 3 could pass by and Puma came uncomfortably close after they both had been a fair bit behind us. Things did not become easier when just before reaching our northern turning point, we broke our fractional halyard and had to sail with Jib 4 instead of the bigger Jib 2 for 13 hours. When daylight came, we could sort out the problem, but by then Ericsson 3 had passed and so had Puma in a very frustrating way.
Puma is the boat we have come really close to a couple of times during this race. This time she came from behind and just sailed by, 100 metres to windward, on a tight reach. Us with our too-small headsail and them with the right gear up. That was enough to face the situation. We had to go downwind and fix the halyard in the fresh breeze and saw Puma disappearing in the morning mist.
As we approached the gate at Pulau We, we should have tacked North a bit earlier behind Puma, but the greedy navigator wanted to split tacks with Puma to see if we could pass her. Instead, we nearly lost Green Dragon, but managed, just in time, to take the necessary, badly unfavoured, tack to the north for two hours, just to get in the same pressure as Dragon. That tack helped us to keep Dragon behind as the gate approached.
We passed the gate at Pulau We and had another frustrating 24 hours, when we often did not know which tack to be on or which sail to have up. Finally, we settled down on a long port fresh reach towards the shore of Malaysia. The leading pack had a better timing to hug the shore in the dying NE trade before the sea breeze set in. To our surprise Ericsson 4 did not push to the shore in time and allowed their great lead to be destroyed in hours, sitting in light air offshore and just seeing three boats, tight on the beach, passing by. I can just imagine how they must have felt.
We managed to get into land in time and picked up the last hours of sea breeze and also welcomed the sudden onset of land breeze last night just before Kuala Lumpur, Port Klang.
Along the shore we went last night, zig zagging between fishing boats and coastal shipping. Luckily, we never got stuck in any nets and also understood that the risks for pirates had been, at least in my mind, slightly exaggerated!
This morning a light WNW breeze took over from the land breeze and suddenly someone called out. “Looks like two VOR boats in front…! We are catching them...!”
We just got closer and closer until I could read the logos in the sails of Puma and Ericsson 4….Then all of the sudden the compression effect we had enjoyed turned into our face and we could just helplessly watch all the four boats in sight catching a new breeze and sail away from us…Our fifth place was a fact, but we were at least happy to have out sailed the Green Dragon the last 24 hours.
Christmas is waiting and then a new much longer uphill fight to China…When we will complain about the cold, not the heat…
Roger Nilson - navigator
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