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9:27 PM Fri 20 Feb 2009 GMT
The first big obstacle is approaching as the fleet make their play towards the doldrums. Unlike Leg 1 the doldrums were well known to the sailors and navigators, but this leg is a new challenge as they have no race history to base this on.
They are working from the limited forecast they have right now and any historical data they could get their hands on pre-leg in order to find their way through the minefield ahead. Whilst the pack stay together, just as in Leg 1, the Dragon has made a play as they stick to the east, the spread across all five boats from Puma to Green Dragon is now over 200 miles.
The big question right now is who is right, the east or west route? Skipper Ian Walker commented this morning, 'Right now our navigator Wouter and I believe we have seen one of those opportunities and a more lifted breeze has enabled us to get east cheaply (without giving too many miles away on the miles to go scale). Wouter is particularly skilled at meteorological routing and in all his and Ian Moore's studies historically east is good both in the trade winds and the doldrums. The leaders couldn't get this far east as they weren't so lifted and they now seem to be fighting to get east'.
Current conditions have increased as they sail once again in the 20 knot north easterly trade winds, and everyone is pointing south east as they choose which lane to take towards the doldrums. Puma have closed the gap down on Ericsson 4 to just two miles and the Nordic crew onboard Ericsson 3 are chasing hard now 60 miles behind in third.
Update from onboard - Ian Walker
'One thing has become clear over the last few legs which is that it is hard for the Green Dragon to live with the big teams in terms of raw boatspeed in stability conditions.We are racing against the fastest boats in the fleet that are fully optimised for these kind of conditions. We are not letting our heads drop, it just means we have to find our edge elsewhere either through teamwork, reliability or strategy and tactics. To date we have done pretty well at this, especially on leg one where our more Westerly route paid big dividends bringing us to the scoring gate in first position. The problem is that every time you separate from the fleet you are taking a risk. Our opponents have the best skippers and navigators in the business, we all have the same weather information, and it is not often that the majority will be wrong. You can also be sure that all the teams will have studied every inch of these routes. Having said that weather can be unpredictable and can change. The weather models are particularly unreliable close to the equator where we will soon be sailing. There has to be some opportunities but there is no sense in gambling wildly, just room for calculated risks if and when the opportunity arises.
'Right now our navigator Wouter and I believe we have seen one of those opportunities and a more lifted breeze has enabled us to get East cheaply (without giving too many miles away on the miles to go scale). Wouter is particularly skilled at meteorological routing and in all his and Ian Moore's studies historically East is good both in the trade winds and the doldrums. The leaders couldn't get this far East as they weren't so lifted and they now seem to be fighting to get East. What is not at all clear right now is how the doldrums will play out and how we will get through the high pressure zones into the Southern Ocean - this could have a huge bearing on the final outcome. For now we are happy to have over 200 miles of leverage to the East of the leaders and whilst we have invested considerable miles to get here we consider it a calculated risk rather than a gamble. If it works of course we will be heroes and if not we will be the ones that took a gamble and failed. Either way the next week will be far more interesting than if we just followed down their tracks losing miles on every position report. Right now I am happy with what we have done and we are starting to claw back some miles - long may that continue.'
Leg Five Day 7: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTF 10,214 nm
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +2
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) +60
Telef?nica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +221
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +231
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) DNS
Telef?nica Black ESP (Fernando Ech?varri/ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS
www.greendragonracing.com
by Lucy Harwood
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Wilsons Promontory, VIC
