9:49 PM Sat 25 Apr 2009 GMT
As the Volvo fleet approaches Boston and the finish of leg six, they have one more hurdle to clear. A high-pressure ridge has stopped the leaders and has given the followers another chance at the podium. Once through the ridge, the fleet will have a clear run to cross the finish line tomorrow.
As Ericsson 4 became the first victim of the high pressure and Ericsson 3, having had a spell in Stealth yesterday, now heads the field into the final straight with Ericsson 4 on her flank a mile behind. In a situation such as this, there is no room for mistakes when another boat is ready to pounce on someone's misfortunes. Puma went undercover for 12 hours at 1000 GMT today, while the second tier is making some big gains.
Delta Lloyd is holding on to fourth place and still doing 13.5 knots, with Telef?nica Black 30 nm behind. The Dragons are the only ones still in double digits behind the leader, and are 101 nm behind.
The entire fleet has had a tough time in the Gulf Stream, sometimes fighting a strong adverse current, with wind speeds topping at 38 knots against the current, which whipped up a nasty, confused sea.
Now, the wind is dropping and the fleet is left wallowing in the leftover sea state. Boat speeds for the leading three are down to less than 10 knots, while the chasing pack is still making good speed.
Routing software is predicting a finish for the first boat in Boston tomorrow at 1613 GMT.
Leg Six Day 15: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) DTF: 337 nm
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +1
Telef?nica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +13
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Berm?dez/ESP) +66
Telef?nica Black ESP (Fernando Ech?varri/ESP) +96
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +101
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) STEALTH
ERICSSON 3 LEG SIX DAY 15 QFB: received 25.04.09 1050 GMT
Sudden craziness spread onboard this morning when we tacked in the high pressure ridge. Not linked to the results, as we were still waiting to see how Telef?nica Blue was getting along with the ridge behind us.
Maybe it is the change from breeze and quite cold, to no breeze and dry on deck. It certainly made it easier to stack, but nothing to justify the screaming, joking and laughing from everyone. Guess we start smelling the finish in Boston.
Hopefully, we will get through this ridge without parking, and it will be the last obstacle of the leg. Just as I write this, I get the latest position report and see that Ericsson 4 has indeed parked just west of us, and that the boats behind are closing in quickly. Excitement again!
Prior to this report, we were very happy to be in the position we are, particularly after losing miles to Puma and Telef?nica Blue when at important places the last two days, and having sailed a bit slow the days before.
Just as we had launched a spinnaker yesterday morning, it came loose at the top and we sailed over the whole chute with 25 knots of boatspeed. It was still hanging from the bow, had entangled itself in a rudder and it was hard to slow the boat down enough to make it possible to pull the parts up on deck. This happened when we were aiming for the northern tip of the light wind area that stopped Telef?nica Blue, and we had hoped to pass just north of it and gain on Telef?nica Blue and PUMA. It probably took half an hour to get going again after the incident. We still gained big time on Telef?nica Blue and PUMA through the light patch, so we were happy enough. We hit it at the narrowest, at a decisive time.
Then, the second low pressure created problems. In increasing breeze, we got everyone on deck to do the painful headsail change. Just one minute after we got the big headsail down, we got slammed by 40 knots breeze in the front. It did not seem like the others got it, we lost 10 miles in the next sched.
Two days ago, I lost my 'lucky' sunglasses when a huge wave got me. The cockpit was covered in 0.5 meter deep water, so I assumed they were gone.
This was sailing fast with the spinnaker, ploughing up huge amounts of water on the end of every surf. So it was very surprising that a couple of hours and a million tonnes of water washing through the cockpit later, Eivind Melleby came down below with them. He had found them in the cockpit, lying a foot short of being washed off the stern. They certainly are lucky ones!
Aksel Magdahl - navigator
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG SIX DAY 15 QFB: received 25.04.09 1629 GMT
The last few days have been quite something. . We have had 30+ knots of wind and we have been completely becalmed all in the space of 48 hours and to top that off, we have been VMG downwind, upwind and pretty much everywhere in between.
Sadly our stealth play didn't pay off and the call to gybe off early played into the hands of our opponents who managed to find more pressure to the north and slide on by. However despite being a little down, we are certainly not out and with sightings of various boats in the fleet in the last day there is still plenty of fire in our bellies to drive us forward to the finish in Boston.
On board has been pretty tough the last few days, the temperature has plummeted and the Gulf Stream proved just as furious as always, delivering big currents, nasty waves and some vicious squalls. Now spat out on the other side, we have had a morning of very little wind at all and many hours of doing all we can just to go forward. The good news now though is we are off again and moving nicely and the weather is like a cold spring morning which, whilst bracing, is clear and sunny which always brings a smile to peoples face, especially when the last day has been spent on the receiving end of a fire hose!!
Now with only a few hundred more miles to Boston, we have to take the fight to the very end...
Cheers,
Simon Fisher - helmsman
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ERICSSON 4 LEG SIX DAY 15 QFB: received 25.04.09 1720 GMT
And my right hand arm is getting bigger and bigger! We have started using the hand watermaker and the only way Nipper (Guy Salter) will allow you to have a coffee is if you pump your own water into the kettle! In addition to each of us pumping for half an hour a day, at least, into the main water tank.
The unit is quite good and I believe very productive. Now that I'm familiar with it I can give you some numbers. You need to make 180 pumps to get your own coffee. And if you need coffee to keep going that will be quite exhausting and if you offer to make coffee for your watch mates, this will take you 25 min or 3 full 10 litre buckets of pumping to fill the kettle with enough fluid to satisfy everyone.
Otherwise the last nights have been chilly, like in China but fortunately with clear sky. We came to a full stop during the night (big wind hole) and this lasted around 4 hours, managing to make a mere 3nm in one sched!! Ericsson 3 managed to get the best of it and we had visual contact with them this morning. Fortunately we have some wind now and we are moving towards the first whale sanctuary mark.
Otherwise all good on board with the normal nerves and tense atmosphere being in such a changeable weather system. Looking forward to get into Boston!!
Horacio Carabelli - trimmer
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