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9:45 PM Fri 21 Nov 2008 GMT
It has been a dramatic week for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet but it has been the Dragon and the Cat who took the brunt of the damage. Green Dragon first broke her steering gear, which caused the boat to Chinese gybe and culminated in the boom breaking in two. Puma have also been battered by the Southern Ocean conditions, twice slamming off waves and causing structural damage to the big cat.
After such a dramatic week, Green Dragon's skipper Ian Walker was very happy to pick up three valuable points, crossing the scoring gate in third despite sailing for three days without a boom. 'It was close to a miracle to get those points, and it could have been a lot worse. When the steering failed I thought we'd broken a rudder or something even more serious. We had just recovered from that when the boom blew up and that could have been even more serious'.
Over the last 24 hours, Ian Walker and his crew have been making good progress into the north leaving the Southern Ocean behind and hoping for more settled conditions ahead. Green Dragon and Telefonica Blue are currently both 37 miles behind the leader Ericsson 3, with Green Dragon being polled 4th behind the Spanish boat. 'We are sailing at very close to 100% and conversation has changed from how we are going to get to India in time for the start of the next leg to perhaps being able to beat some boats into Cochin'.
Repairs to the broken boom will have to wait until they get north as for the moment it is too cold for the glue and epoxy to go off. 'I imagine we'll start work on it when we hit the trade winds in about two days'. Explained Ian Walker. 'We've already used quite a lot of materials fixing other things on the boat. So, we haven't 100% decided if we are going to repair the boom, but I guess we will have a go just for interest sake and hopefully it will enable us to sail in lighter airs.'
In Ian Walkers blog today he explained what is in store for the next few days: 'We have now entered one of those quiet periods of the race where nothing too much is happening. Everyone is charging along on a reach at 20 knots but not on the edge as you would be downwind with a spinnaker. For those watching at home it is a period where it shouldn't be necessary to check the website every 3 hours. Of course some boats will gain a few miles and some will lose a few - particularly if they change sails - and there is always a risk of something failing, but in general not much will change compared to either windy or very light and shifty weather. On board the Green Dragon we are enjoying crossing off the miles without any dramas and trying to save ourselves for the challenges ahead. On deck it is very wet as we are hard reaching with jib top and full main but no longer very cold and not yet too hot. We are able to sail with 3 on deck and no standby so everyone is recharging their batteries. What is very pleasing is that we have been able to set the mainsail up quite well without a boom and we can now reef well too. We are sailing at very close to 100% and conversation has changed from how we are going to get to India in time for the start of the next leg to perhaps being able to beat some boats into Cochin. We are after all in 4th after sailing for 4 days without a boom so who knows. What will be absolutely crucial is avoiding any upwind sailing so this will strongly affect our tactics. So far my race predictions have been good and I predict some wildly varying strategies for the last 1000 miles of this race, Every forecast we get is presenting us with a very different optimal route to Cochin and some vary by as much as 1000 miles apart. This is good news from our perspective as the last thing we want in our current state is a drag race'.
On general life onboard. 'One thing that is getting very strange onboard is that ships time for us is UTC to stay in sync with the race office position reports and weather downloads. As we have been effectively racing due East we are losing time fast and our clock was 2 hours late relative to local time leaving Cape Town is now 5 hours late relative to local time. That means it is getting light at midnight and dark at 3 in the afternoon. Yesterday I was eating dinner as the sun was coming up and it wasn't because I had just got in from the pub. This really messes with your mind so we have decided to slip our mealtimes a few hours to try to compensate. For us lunch is now cooked at 9am and dinner will be at 3pm. You can of course eat it when you want as it sits in the thermos pot ready for you to serve yourself. Other than that the only thing to report is that man flu has firmly got a grip of most of us now which is not entirely surprising as we share sleeping bags, bowls, spoons etc. As long as that remains the worst ailment that comes onboard during this race I will be a happy man'.
Leg Two Day Seven:
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
1. Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) DTF 2519
2. Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) + 9
3. Telef?nica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +37
4. Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +37
5. PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +41
6. Telef?nica Black ESP (Fernando Ech?varri/ESP) +69
7. Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +73
8. Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +99
Read more news at greendragonracing.com
by Lucy Harwood
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Norseman Airport, WA
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