9:01 PM Wed 19 Nov 2008 GMT
Boat Blogs on Day 5, Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Loving The Southern Ocean - Blog From Nick Bubb, Watch Leader on Team Russia
At last, two minutes to breath! I've just come off deck having peeled our largest spinnaker; it's a great feeling to be under max sail. The first few days have been testing to say the least with a tricky first day followed by big wind and close racing, all of which have of course been coupled with a few technical challenges onboard.
After a good start we sped round the inshore course with the lead pack only to sail in into a huge wind hole as the gradient breeze battled with sea breeze. One wrong call as we tried to steal a march on the fleet and we were toast, out the back in no wind as the others sailed off, how depressing! We were left with no choice but to pick up the pieces and battle on, which is exactly what we have done with good effect so far.
With keel issues from the word go, again I was busy early on. This time the new ram boots have been fine but the keel kept easing down from max cant as soon as we loaded the boat up. After much fiddling around we discovered it was due to some dirt in the release valves and after a thorough clean up, everything seems to be ok now. A few small repairs here and there but touchwood, Kosatka is holding up well.
My personal highlight of the race so far was the other morning; big rolling seas, overcast sky, freezing water, 40 knots of breeze, A6 (fractional spinnaker) and 2 reefs, fully stacked aft, Mikey on the pumps Jez trimming, me on the wheel. We were just blasting along with prolonged periods pf over 30 knots boat speed and a max speed of 34 knots. However this was then followed by near disaster as soon after the watch change, Mikey and I were in the bow bailing out when we heard the boat take off, down what must have been a huge wave, as we hit the bottom, with nowhere to go, the boat had to either roll into the breeze and broach or Chinese gybe (an accidental gybe). Unfortunately the helmsman was powerless to control her and we 'chinesed.' There was carnage on deck and down below. Sail stack in the water, keel on the wrong side, crew clipped on half underwater, runners on the wrong side, boom in the air, spinnaker in the rig, boat half under water, kit everywhere down below as various missiles launched themselves at the off watch. After what seemed like an eternity we sorted the keel out, completed the gybe, got the kite down and gybed back to our proper course, all very relieved still to have a rig in the boat!!
Anyway enough stories for now, I must go, only two hours until I need to be up again. We are currently engaged in a thrilling battle to try to beat both Telefonica boats and maybe even Puma to the scoring gate tomorrow afternoon. We should gybe north later on today and the crew are all very excited at warming up. For me, my feelings are slightly different, this will be the last of the southern ocean for a while, which unofficially starts at 40S and I do feel a tinge of regret at not following the old course and heading south for Australia. There are certainly new challenges ahead however so I better prepare for that, if we beat Telefoncia Black and Delta Lloyd to this scoring gate we will move up to 6th overall so motivation is high... and Green Dragon is only 40 miles directly in front of us, under 2 hours away!!
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG TWO DAY 5 QFB: received 19.11.08 0439 GMT
Hi There,
It still seems that the days are passing very quickly. Perhaps it is because we are headed east and night falls a little earlier each day or maybe it is the pace of life onboard.
Right now life is busy onboard, some would even say chaotic, with sail making, sickness and injuries, everyone's day is full keeping the boat in one piece and headed down the track.
It has been a tough last 24 hours. We have struggled once again to keep in touch with the fleet in the windy downwind conditions. Everyone has slowly extended on us leaving us somewhat frustrated and left behind. Hopes of a good score at the waypoint gate seem to be slowly slipping away but with many, many miles to go before we arrive in India, I am hopeful that we can pull off a good overall result in this leg. This is what I am trying to focus on to stay positive.
Lighter conditions will no doubt suit us better and a return to the sunshine and warmer climes will no doubt raise the spirits of everyone onboard. Right now, it is cold and grey outside, cool and damp inside. It would be fair to say that the thing everyone looks forward to most at the moment is the inside of a warm sleeping bag!
Up on deck, things are kept interesting by the passing of squalls fairly frequently taking the breeze from 25-35 knots in a matter of minutes and changing the sea state from tolerable into a nightmare as our wet ride continues. However, even this looks likely to stop soon with the breeze now forecast to drop over the course of the day. Perhaps this will be a good thing; with change afoot as the scoring gate approaches, it might offer a little window of opportunity to take a few points off the guys ahead.... Here's hoping...
Cheers,
Simon Fisher - navigator
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TELEF?NICA BLACK LEG TWO DAY 5 QFB: received 19.11.08 1033 GMT
Hi all
Yesterday, when dawn came, we saw a navigation green light to our port side, and we realised that it could not be no other than our friends from TELEF?NICA BLUE. And there they were. We were sailing a very interesting internal match-race to the gate, and in the next position report it came out that we had gained 14 miles to the waypoint ahead of them!
It was a very nice time, sailing beam-to-beam no more than two miles away from one another. And, as dawn came, they had sailed a bit northward of us, probably because they are with a different sail, and with different strategy. We still want to go a bit east-southeast, and we will see what happens when heading north with the expected gybe ahead.
Apart from that, everybody onboard begins to feel a bit tired, as there has been four days now of intense sailing in rough conditions, but happy anyway for the position. We enjoy every wave, but as Javi Plaza says, 'it is time for a bit of sun bathing and relaxing, isn't it?'
And, hopefully, we will have our Maciel 'Cicho' Cicchetti trimming on deck in a couple of days, eager as he is to recover completely. We have to tie him up to make him rest! Ha ha!
Now it is lunchtime, so let's go for the 'Serrano' ham.
All the best.
Mikel Pasabant - MCM
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GREEN DRAGON LEG TWO DAY 5 QFB: received 19.11.08 0628 GMT
Not giving up
Four days into leg two and the Southern Ocean is living up to its name. One broken steering system, one Chinese gybe, one broken boom and now three knockdowns, but we are still charging along for the scoring gate at longitude 58 east.
I have to confess to being slightly nervous about our predicament, but the forecast is good and we will soon be heading North (ish).
We seem to have the boat going pretty well, but we are vulnerable to being knocked down in the frequent squalls as we are fairly committed to carrying a full main and there is no easy way to ease it.
It is also setting very full and this affects the balance of the boat. It wasn't an easy night for the guys on deck - and the temperature is falling fast. Down below everything is sodden as we have several leaks (one of which is the hole we drilled in the side to jury rig the steering!). We also have a leaking daggerboard case, which has split.
I feel a bit like the Black Adder TV character that refuses to be beaten and keeps on fighting as his arms and legs are cut off one by one by his adversary.
We now have about 400 miles to the scoring gate and we lie in third position (in terms of easting) with a slender 25-mile lead over Puma and about 40 miles over the Russians. Our aim is to defend this as best we can and, over the last 12 hours, we have done just that.
One of our challenges is going to be gybing. We are still discussing how we are going to do this - if at all - maybe we will granny round. We are also trying to sort out how we can reef if we need to. Tom Braidwood is itching to get going on fixing the boom, but for now, we are focusing on sailing fast to the scoring gate.
This focus on racing hard is great for moral and everybody is determined to make the best of what we have. For now then, we are hanging on in there waiting for the wind to drop and shift to allow us to gybe and head back North. Our aim is to get as many points as we can at the scoring gate before worrying too much about how we will get to India. It still looks quite a long way away on the chart!
Oh yes - I don't wish to sound like a whinging pom but as if things can't get any worse, I should also mention that somebody has brought a bug on to the boat and half of us now have sore throats and head colds - I suspect it won't be long before we all do - Joy!
Ian Walker - skipper
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ERICSSON 3 LEG TWO DAY 5 QFB: received 19.11.08 1145 GMT
'How are you Gustav?' Anders Lewander shouts to me when I stick my head up the hatch to throw some water out.
'All good,' I answer, pretty satisfied with my work during the morning with bailing and sponging the entire boat and making a very appreciated meal of porridge.
How are you Anders?'
'Fed up! There is not enough wind!'
Ok, so there's only 20 to 28 knots. We have obviously been spoiled with high wind speed the last couple of days and an average of boatspeed around 20 to 25 knots.
The conditions are fun, but tough in the long term. Last night, in complete darkness, we had a quite dramatic broach. We were sailing in steady 30 knots and rough seas when a big squall came in.
In just a few seconds, the wind increased to over 40 knots. Magnus Olsson was helming at the time and when he felt the wind coming, he said a prayer:
'No broach, please God, no broach'.
Just when he finished, a big gust hit us and forced the bow deep under water and at the same time, we were heeling badly. But it felt like the boat just continued to accelerate. I was lying in my bunk at the time and struggled to hold on. It was one of those times when you feel that the boat is sailing you and not the other way around. And the master overall is Mother Nature. We have unfinished business.
The crew was completely flushed, and if they had not been hooked on with their harnesses, they would have been washed overboard.
When you are hit by the water in around 30 knots of boatspeed, it's like running into a wall. This time bowman Anders Dahlsj? lost his grip and got smashed into a winch handle down to leeward. The handle bent badly and Anders was in agony, holding his hands over his ribs. Now we have one more guy on painkillers.
Magnus Olsson just climbed down the hatch and spontaneously said: 'I would be lying if I said I'm not longing to start heading north soon.'
We have been sailing really well the last days in the drag race towards the
scoring gate. We are on starboard tack now and waiting to gybe until we get the westerly shift that will take us north.
Gustav Morin - MCM
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG TWO DAY 5 QFB: received 19.11.08 0653 GMT
Had a very tough 24 hours, whatever we have done went wrong. It was like fixing a fuse, which didn't want to click on.
The Black boat sailed right passed us last night. We changed sails, but still slow, reefed main in /out several times, still slow and, worse of all, we ripped the main, not too badly, but we had to wait until daylight to fix it.
We sent Daryl Wislang/NZL up the mast with a halyard and two security lines, and he fixed it as though the sail was lying on the flat floor. Now, all of sudden, the boat is going again, very, very strange.
I don't know how many times we checked the keel to see if there was something on it, but couldn't see anything. Another mishap is that Laurent Pages/FRA) is out of the watch. He got smashed into the wheel protection and has hurt his shoulder. He was clipped on, but not in the right spot, he was washed back the length of his safety line, and he had enough pace to do the damage. He can move his arm, so that is at least a good thing. Keeping him in bed is the best we can do right now. We will check him once he is up again.
So, we are all in a bit of a moody feeling, as all the other boats sail faster and we have to make sure we hang in there. A tough day in the life of Volvo sailor.
Cheers,
Bouwe Bekking - skipper
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