Det är lite lugnare vindar och därmed långsammare segling för båtarna i Volvo Ocean Race som är på väg mot Rio de Janeiro. Efter 36 dygnssegling återstår fortfarande cirka 700 Nm och mycket kan hända innan båtarna går i mål. Ericsson 3 leder med cirka 75 Nm före Ericsson 4. På tredje plats ligger fortfarande Puma.
Här är de senaste releaserna från Race Office:
Sunday 22 March 2009, 1630 GMT
AFTERNOON REPORT, LEG 5, DAY 37
It’s turned into a slow motion race to Rio. High pressure is blocking the front runners from a quick passage to the finish line and the final stage of this marathon leg is turning into a challenge bigger than anyone anticipated.
For the leg-leading Ericsson 3, the situation is compounded by the fact that those behind have been making better speeds for much of the weekend. That’s not the case anymore, but their lead has been compromised significantly. Ericsson 4 is now just 60 miles behind.
Horacio Carabelli wrote in on Sunday to report on the slow progress the chasing Ericsson 4 is making and the impact that is having on their food supplies.
“We are slowly progressing towards Rio and we still have a lot to go,” he wrote. “I’ve been sailing along this coast a good part of my life and normally, to Rio is a light upwind trip in this time of the year unless you catch a front coming from South. Sailing itself has been pleasant in moderate winds, flat water and quite clear skies, much better than 3-4 days ago where we were fully dressed with all the underlayers we had availiable.
“Nipper has reorganised the food for the second time, every time making the day bag emptier!! So it will be a painful 800 miles from here. The distance between the boats has changed quite a bit as we pass through the west of a high pressure area, gaining and losing on each sked, difficult to say what will happen and at the end we have to deal with the approach to Guanabara Bay that can be very tricky. According to the planning we should be in by the 25th at noon, so if we are lucky we have three more nights left…”
A look at the 2D tracker shows what the boats are dealing with. Flick on the weather overlay and you can see the westerly sector of the high pressure system Horacio was referring to is bringing light northerly winds. That means upwind sailing for today. Relief does come from the forecast however. If you play the race forward by one day, the wind veers around to the right, allowing freer sailing on starboard tack by this time tomorrow. But that doesn’t make today any easier.
“The gods are taunting us today, and I wonder what did we do to displease them?” was the way Rick Deppe put it on PUMA. “Making very slow progress towards Rio as we find ourselves tacking upwind in a very light breeze. It’s really frustrating because we’re not really used to going this slowly on our high speed il mostro, especially in the last month of sailing when we have never really stopped! I don’t even think the guys would care if we were going upwind in breeze today just so long as we were making meaningful progress toward Rio.”
How slow has the progress been? Take a look in the Data Centre for an indication. Only one boat has a 24 hour run over 300 miles, and that’s Telefonica Blue at the back of the fleet and enjoying a completely different weather pattern. The leading trio has been mired in sub-200 mile days.
“Plodding along at a snail’s pace right now, frustrated because we can’t make any real progress on the Ericsson boats and are making painfully slow progress on the finish line,” wrote Ken Read from il mostro, after recovering from a 36-hour stomach bug. “At least if we are to be out here longer than projected, give us a weather window to make a run at the two leaders! A simple delivery from here is no fun. 800 plus miles to go, and we are light air upwind at the moment, making very little ground.”
Onboard the Telefonica Blue boat though, the news is more positive and the team is gaining major traction on Green Dragon, now just 240 miles ahead – still a significant advantage, but much smaller than it was coming into the weekend.
“We are ‘lucky’, as we have tonight a breeze very close to being in the right range of our J4 jib,” was the explanation from Telefonica Blue skipper Bouwe Bekking. “The last 48 hours we have been sailing in the so-called no-mans-land, as we couldn’t have the right jib up, meaning sailing only at around 85% of our optimum. So even though it is a bumpy ride, we are making ok progress and the performance numbers are better, even though we are still on the wind. Within a day from now the breeze will start lighten off, but lift which means less water over the deck and probably better progress, as we can hoist our big code 0.”
The end result should be a closer spread across the finish times for the fleet compared to the rounding at Cape Horn. 753 miles to go for Ericsson 3 and the finish can’t come soon enough.
Sunday 22 March 2009, 1530 GMT
By Riath Al-Samarrai
While the fleet has been battling a marathon leg, Team Delta Lloyd have been locked in an epic adventure of their own.
It’s been a shade longer than seven weeks since Roberto Bermudez’s team retired from leg four in Taiwan, the result of a cracked forward ring frame as well as bow delamination.
In between, the campaign has changed drastically with two key new faces in the team’s shore operation; a new mast; three changes to the sailing crew; and a loft of largely new sails.
It’s a combination which Bermudez hopes will get the team a podium position on one of the five remaining legs or four in-port races, but in the meantime he would like to catch his breath.
“A lot has been going on,” he said. “A lot of changes to the campaign and I think it will get us good results. I think we are capable of getting a podium.”
Not that he has been too consumed by the racing over the last month. “I’ve hardly looked at the position reports,” he said. “It’s been too frustrating. I want to be sailing. The long leg (from China), it has not been done before. It has the (Cape) Horn, and we all would like to do it. I have been round three times; I would much prefer to go round sailing, rather than watch. It has been hard.”
In boat building terms, it has been particularly tough.
It was initially hoped the boat could be packed on a ship to arrive in Rio on March 4, but ultimately they were forced to take a later option that got it here on March 12. Work finally started the following day and since then the boat has undergone extensive surgery. The forward ring frame has been replaced with one flown in from Italy, while another two have been fitted to the bow to make three. The delaminated panel on the underside of the hull, meanwhile, has been cut out and replaced. And all in addition to the regular maintenance of the boat.
“A lot of work,” said Mike Danks, the former Pirates of the Caribbean shore boss who was hired to lead the land operations in place of Jeff Condell. “We’re doing really well, we’re fortunate to have some great help.”
Not least from Killian Bushe, the renowned Irishman who built the boat (formerly the all-conquering ABN AMRO ONE) and also the two Ericsson yachts for this race. He flew in with seven of his specialist boat building team to oversee work on the ring frames and panel, while Danks and his seven-strong shore team attacked the remaining job list.
“We’ve also had a guy in from Southern Spars and an extra electronics expert,” Danks said. “We’re doing this properly. It’s a bit of a new start for the team so hopefully we can get going again.”
Bushe added: “Everything has gone very well. You have challenges working here, like the heat and finding the parts you need. It’s all here, you just have to find it.”
Soon the wait to get the boat back on the water will be over. Danks anticipates repairs will be completed by March 25 and the boat, complete with its new mast, will be sailing by March 28. “We’ll be in a position where we can prepare and with a fresher boat as well.”
To that end, he revealed “at least four or five new sails”, including a mainsail, will be added to the boat here, along with “a few new sails” that were due to be used on leg five. “It should help us a lot, to have that on our side,” he said.
Other changes have taken place onboard. Guillermo Altadill, Ed O’Connor and Martin Watts have all stepped off the boat – O’Connor has taken a place on the shore team – and Nick Bice and Ben Costello have joined the crew. A third new crew member is expected to be named this week.
It’s enough to make Bermudez smile again. “We have done a lot of good things with our time away,” he said. “I feel very good about the rest of the race.”
