Sailing : Volvo / Puma : Leg 4 Day 3 – All about the 'picks'

This is going to be the leg that at least up until now, is defined by who gets ‘picked’. You know, like a pick in basketball where a big guy stands there and the offensive player runs around the big guy and his defensive person gets cleaned off of him. I think a lot of sports use ‘picks’. Add sailing to the list.

It really started when we were leaving Singapore and there were a ton of ships. We were sailing along about five lengths to windward of Ericsson 4 and we could make it just to weather of a 1000 foot super tanker that was anchored. They couldn't; the ship was a pick. They had to go under and we took the lead. A lead we would keep for a day and a half.

So now comes the ‘reef-style’ picks. We were going upwind for about a day and a half with Ericsson 4 about a mile and a half behind. Approaching the North Lucoma Shoals the water depth goes from 1000 meters to three meters. We had three charts of these shoals and one said we could go through the middle, one said maybe and one said no way. We chose the no way, and along with a breeze header, had to dip the shoal along with Ericsson 4. Telefonica Blue on the other hand was far enough behind, and sailed in the next wind shift which was a lift, and got around the top of the shoals gaining five miles in the process. A bummer for us, good for them - and the ‘good’ news is there are about a thousand of these shoals all over the South China Sea. Many, many more ‘picks’ to come. One final factoid about all these ‘picks’ - the accuracy of the charts is absolutely in question and supposedly there are a lot of reefs that are unmarked out here. As if there wasn't enough on this leg to make my stomach turn....

Of course you could go way out and around this massive area of shoals but that would be a race loser. We will all be short tacking through the shoals and reefs. From thousands of meters of depth to virtually nothing. Really fun at night especially!

As all these last legs have done, the wind has gone light and it is very mixed up with black rain clouds and big shifts. It’s all about the luck of the draw right now and the boats behind have had a nice opportunity to get right back into the game with the lead boats hitting the lighter airs first. I know this sounds like a broken record but I can say that in these last couple of legs the rain squalls have made or broken the legs for all. A little skill, a lot of luck. Both are needed.

So we will keep plugging away. Our lead evaporated and the restart complete. Time to get our heads back into the game. And try to avoid the ‘picks’.

Kenny