10:36 AM Wed 26 Nov 2008 GMT
Strange happenings onboard one Volvo 70. Read today's offerings from the boats below.
ERICSSON 4 LEG TWO DAY 12 QFB: received 26.11.08 0519 GMT
Only 900 miles to go but it will be a painful and long ordeal, there will be some very happy and unhappy boats by the end of this leg as there will be plenty of luck involved over the next few days. Hopefully we can stay on the front row but sometimes you don't have a say in these things.
This morning we watched Ericsson 3 come from 11 miles behind, to about four in the space of 3 hours as we struggled through some light air clouds. We seem to be wearing quite a few of these clouds that are losing us a lot of miles. I guess everyone has to deal with them as well, but sometimes you feel they seem to find you only.
We are getting ready for some very light air over the next day or so and there seems to be a lot of snoring going on today as the sleeping conditions are at last perfect. Tony (Tony Mutter/NZL) is living up to his nickname 'Chopper' and is snoring nearly as loudly as the continuous screaming of the rudders, which is making everyone deaf and shouting is the means of communication.
We fully expect to see Puma, Green Dragon and Ericsson 3 for the next few days and probably into the finish as I can't imagine anyone getting too far apart in the weather we have coming.
Days like these are why my hair is falling out and going grey, I better stop moaning and go sailing, later.
Brad Jackson - watch captain
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TELEF?NICA BLACK LEG TWO DAY 12 QFB: received 26.11.08 0936 GMT
Hi everybody!
At last, we have reached the Indian Doldrums, and we have some time to clean up and get some fresh air into our smelly boat. The only problem is the wind; it is not helping us much. The breakages are so many that we spend too much of our energy solving them instead of proper sailing. We get very disappointed when we are racing, and pushing the boat hard just to keep with the rest of the fleet, and there we go with any other failure!
The fleet is compressed in 150 miles after 3500 of rough sailing, which is incredible, and also means that there have not been many chances for the experimentation, and nobody wants to take any risk. We need some proper sailing, so that we can get the most of TELEF?NICA NEGRO and be with the rest of the fleet as we have been since the beginning.
We have crossed the line of the 1000 miles to the finish line, and we do not know what the time we will get there will be, but estimate around four or five days, as we think the wind is not going to blow hard. This is our chance to get closer to the leaders, but we all know it is going to be very difficult.
Everybody is in good condition, mentally and physically, although a bit tired from the hard days that have passed before, blowing and soaked all the time and we are looking forward a nice shower and sleep! The good news is that we still have David Vera/ESP and his good humour!
Mikel Pasabant - MCM
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ERICSSON 4 LEG TWO DAY 11 QFB: received 25.11.08 1724 GMT
Life onboard Ericsson 4 is good at the moment - but due to get more uncomfortable for sure. The heat is tolerable at present but, as we get closer to the equator, I'm sure it will be back to being pretty sticky onboard and all the unpleasantness that not washing properly for a couple of weeks create.
The wind is also due to drop in the next 24hrs, which increases the stress levels for those in power, as it is, we already have been having a torrid time amongst the minefield of clouds which are created in the night times. It has certainly felt a game of snakes and snakes for us onboard Ericsson 4 - but then, I am sure you will be having the same sob story from most of the boats.
Ericsson 3 has been clearly in sight for the last 36hrs and the chasing pack seems to be snapping closer to our heels every time we get a sched. There could be some very tense times ahead and maybe a couple of re-starts of the race.
I was quite surprised yesterday when talking to our Brazilian squad that when I mentioned if we were in the same situation (400 miles from Mauritius) a few hundred years ago, that we would be stopping off for some Dodo to eat.
Amazingly, they had not heard of such beast and were also unaware of its place in the English language! I wonder what other societies are unaware of this tragic bird.
Guy Salter MCM
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG TWO DAY 11 QFB: received 21.10.08 1327 GMT
Hi there,
To say the last 18 hours of my life have been stressful would be a bit of an understatement! Sailing or rather limping along with our busted wing (broken daggerboard) we found ourselves last night in all kinds of bother. A massive header that we couldn't escape by sailing high, which had me biting me nails pulling my hair out and staring at the computer screen in disbelief as the guys around us wound out massive amounts of easting.
As Bouwe mentioned at one stage I was even looking at the option of tacking which probably in retrospect was a pretty ballsy option so it was good to have him there to try and counter the reasoning for doing one thing or another. At the time I was hating life fearing the worst thinking this was it - big losses coming up but also thinking back now trying to work out what the hell to do is one of the reasons I enjoy this sport and why I enjoy working as a navigator together with our skipper Bouwe. Coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas and then trying to rationalise the solution, albeit in this case do nothing and go straight is one of the challenges that make my job interesting.
Several hours on I am feeling slightly better about our position, at one stage it looked like we were headed to the bottom of the fleet by virtue of our westerly position but with some updated weather and now a little more breeze than expected the situation is looking slightly brighter. Who knows it could all turn to custard again for us but once again it is one of the quirks of yacht racing. Unfortunately sometimes luck plays its part and decides your fate for you whether it be hitting something that is lurking underwater or getting hammered by a cloud while the guy next to you yachts away.
So perhaps luck has got us into this situation so maybe it will get us out too! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the doldrums and we'll wait and see what happens.
Cheers, for now,
Si Fi
Simon Fisher - navigator
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PUMA LEG TWO DAY 11 QFB: received 25.11.08 0955 GMT
Something very strange happened this morning. Hard to believe but somehow my watch reset it self whilst I slept, and put me an hour late getting into the galley to sort out breakfast. This could have been a big problem at any other meal time than breakfast or with any off coming watch than Salty (Rob Salthouse) and Michi (M?ller).
Fortunately for me breakfast today is cold muesli, just add your own water. So when I got to the galley, I thought it was 0105hrs an hour early but was in fact it was 0205hrs and Salty had already dove into the day 11 food bag and had the muesli mix already halfway down his neck.
Why are we having breakfast at 0200hrs you are probably asking yourself, well the vessel operates on GMT ( Greenwich Mean Time) this is the time in Greenwich England on the 0 degree longitude meridian but the sun here at 73 degrees East comes up at around 0300hrs GMT. It takes some getting used to. So as I arrived at the galley making my excuses and apologies Salty and Michi just looked at each other grinned and told me not to worry about it. OK so I wont, phew.
The hard reaching/fetching conditions of the last few days have finally started easing up, that's a good thing and I don't mind admitting that last night I had just about had enough. One major reason for my frustration last night was that I was starting to have some equipment malfunctions, as there was so much humidity in the boat that my camera decided that it was finished for the day. Main problem with this is that I had a very important tape inside that camera and at that point didn't know if I would be able to ever get it out. I put the camera in the engine bay overnight and fortunately this morning it fired up first time and I was able to retrieve the tape. OK, with the lighter winds will get us to Cochin a little slower but trust me as long as the other boats go a bit lighter than us I'll happily do lunch instead of breakfast at this point.
Rick Deppe - MCM
 | PUMA Ocean Racing's il mostro in rough weather, on leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Cape Town, South Africa to Cochin, India The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008, it will, for the first time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the hi - Volvo Ocean Race ©Click Here to view large photo |
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG TWO DAY 11 QFB: received 25.11.08 0612 GMT
Late yesterday afternoon there must have been some 'panic' in the race headquarters, as we got following message from them, I quote RHQ: 'MRCC Madrid have just rung us to say one of your EPRIBS has been set off. Can you confirm all is ok onboard and if you are aware that an EPIRB has been activated. We tried to ring but cannot get through?'
An EPIRB is an emergency beacon, which you can activate when you are in distress. Once activated it send a distress signal to a satellite, which then gets picked up by a land station. Luckily nothing of that, as we were all smiles and blasting along and actually started making again some gains. The wind had freed up, and the missing daggerboard was not so critical. Of course we responded quickly back that all was ok and we checked the EPIRB which is mounted at the stern of our boat, and indeed she was switched on. It has a hydrostatic release, so in case a boat sinks, it switches itself on. As we were more under water than over the water by sailing so fast, the machine thought we were going under, so it switched on. Actually good to know that this system works flawless and big brother is watching us.
Then last night we got 'dogged' by a bad cloud, we had to go upwind for three hours in very light winds, and not having the daggerboard made it even more painful. In the mean time the other boats reached along. Sifi (Simon Fisher) and myself were sitting in the navstation, looking in disbelieve at the numbers: WHAT TO DO? Tack and try to find the same wind as the others or ride it out. Sifi in favour of tacking and me going straight. Tacking we would have not only lost miles to the finish, but more importantly we would have been sailing directly behind the leaders. We had another look at all the weather maps, yes, the east would be little better long term, but without the daggerboard we can only sail about 7-8 degrees lower than the others, so there is no way to match them. Therefore we decided to carry on, and hope we find a bit of luck while crossing the doldrums.
Cheers,
Bouwe Bekking - Skipper
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ERICSSON 3 LEG TWO DAY 10: received 24.11.08 2120 GMT
It is extremely close racing now. For the last hours we have been able to see Ericsson 4. I thought the race mode was at its highest level before but now it has taken a few steps up.
It is just as exiting as it is hard to cope with the stress that the competition creates. Some people have a hard time watching a game of soccer when the score is equal and there is just a few minutes to go. We are experiencing the exact same feeling. But we have been feeling it since the scoring-gate and we will probably have to cope with it until we reach the finish line in about four days.
We have had a quite rough last 24 hours on a slamming reach with 20 knots in both wind and boat speed. Usually those numbers are about the same.
But a few hours ago they started dropping and we and Ericsson 4 have lost many miles to fleet behind us.
For the moment it is really tricky and tiring to sail the boat at 100 percent. We got stuck in a big squall for a while and now the wind is shifting a lot, both in strength and direction. That means a lot of sail cha
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by Various Volvo Ocean Race competitors
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Cape Leeuwin, WA
Foiling - Components (Wings,Masts,etc)
