9:14 PM Sat 21 Feb 2009 GMT
Latest News from the Volvo Ocean Race fleet on Leg 5, the longest leg of the race.
ERICSSON 3 LEG FIVE DAY 8 QFB: received 21.02.09 1552 GMT
Magnus Olsson is disappointed. Not with the team and our efforts. With that part he is very happy. Not the least since we are keeping up with the front guys when we started seven hours after them. Just starting this leg was an effort itself.
But he is disappointed with the wildlife of the first part of this route. Magnus is a friend of the animals. It has been said that during a previous race he found a spider onboard soon after the start and managed to make it survive for 30 days, until the finish.
We have seen no animals so far in these waters where no one onboard has ever been before. No dolphins, no whales, no cool birds. No nothing. Well, that's not entirely true. We had a fly-fish visiting yesterday morning.
'It will be different in the Southern Ocean which is full of life. The birds down there are just fantastic', says Magnus who has a big fascination of the Albatrosses and their way of sweeping over the surface and diving between the waves without moving their wings.
We are soon entering the tricky Doldrums again. It now seems, looking on the satellite pictures, like we are in a good position to make a good way through the first section.
But you can never be sure of anything this close to the equator. The picture can change completely in very short time and we are all preparing for 'squall-hours' with no wind one second and fully powered up the next. It feels like it has already started.
During the day we could breathe out a bit with just around 15 knots of wind, calm sea and sunny sky. We were still heeling quite a bit, sailing with the wind from 70 degrees true, but there was not much water on deck and for a while we could even open up the aft hatch to let some air in under deck. Talk about relief. A normal person wouldn't believe the smell we live in. It's always a bit tough to go down below when you've been on deck and got some fresh air in your nose. But you get used to it quicker than you would think. There's just nothing you can do about it.
At the time I wrote the last sentence, Eivind (Eivind Melleby/NOR) put his feet just in front of my nose. He was about to jump out of his bunk and I'm sitting just below it. That is over the limit.
The nice weather did not last for long. Now the boat is whistling its way forward again. It is pretty bumpy with 20 knots of wind and a wind direction of 80 degrees.
The next 24 hours will probably be quite interesting.
Gustav Morin - MCM
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ERICSSON 4 LEG FIVE DAY 8 QFB: received 21.02.09 0907 GMT
Sods Law for Navigators part 8
You never know how much you miss Inmarsat's Fleet Broadband until it has gone. Here Jules navigator Salter talks through the challenges of having to return to fax in a world of satellite communication.
The frustration onboard is compounded by the fact that Ericsson 4 is currently sailing in the wider global spot beam of the I3 satellite and is currently only able to get voice and Sat C for location. It is expected that they will clear this in the next few hours.
We have known for a while that there were going to be some communications problems on this whopper of a leg due to the global satellite reorganisation upgrade which is taking place for the first 10days of the leg.
Such is life...just another Volvo sailor moaning you say. We now can't use our back up Fleet 33 units. These are slower for download - (think dial up CompuServe connection circa '98) and get most of what we need -all you need is a bit more patience. We are currently sailing in a wedge of the west Pacific roughly over Micronesia, which does not get Fleet 33 spot beam coverage, which means that we can't get data via the Fleet 33. The data I am talking about are GRIB files (wind peed and data information our computers use to work out the fastest routes to take), weather maps from expert forecasters, satellite photos and other information we use to help us guess where to position our boats.
Sods law of course dictates that we are in the 100nm or so before we enter the first light and fickle doldrum belt on this voyage. So no weather info other than some general met area text descriptions, our onboard satellite receiver (5 a day if lucky) and much to the amusement of those of a certain age on board, I have got the old school weather fax running. With our T&T radio set we can get weather maps from the sky assent out at the US taxpayers expense from Hawaii, amongst other places.
Reception is not digital but there is a pleasure in receiving a slightly blurred weather map from the airwaves as you hear the tone come in over the SSB radio. You have to tune the unit, look up a schedule, set up the software and also make sure no one has accedentally pulled the plug out of the backstay antenna as they take a leak off the back of the yacht.
Whether it will help us maintain our slender lead through the first doldrum area is a moot point. As much information as possible is always good to base your decisions on but so often with these bubbling, light wind, cloudy weather situations a large amount of good luck will be more important.
Still it was good to revisit old technology for a while as we become ever too complacent on so much newer technology we (me especially) do not understand.
Jules Salter - navigator
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 8 QFB: received 21.10.09 1011 GMT
Finally a bit of relieve of wind pressure, and this afternoon was the first time on this trip to peel all the foul weather clothes off. But the wind has shifted dramatically, and we are having a way worse angle than the leading boats. The bungee cord is now again working for them, and probably in two days time it will go our way again. As I speak, we are back how it was the previous days, spray flying everywhere in 18 knots of breeze. The person who said the Pacific was all about sunshine, beaches and gentle breezes got it wrong, at least for this year.
Last night we had to slow the boat down dramatically as we had to fix the so-called propbox door. The opening/closing mechanism failed and the door stayed open, slowing us down dramatically and we had to drop the main to sail as slow as possible to be able get inside the box. Going to fast meant the water pressure would go up, resulting in a big stream of water pouring into the boat, once the safety lid was off. Xabi (Xabier Fernandez) and David (David Vera) did a quick fix and we were on our way again in just under an hour.
Tom (Tom Addis - navigator) is bit agitated, as we are sailing in an area where we don't receive any weather information. Trying to do it the old way via the SSB doesn't work either. It is one of these things that you learn over the years. Do not get too upset about things you do not have control over, especially if it is the same for all the other boats. Not receiving data means as well that we can't send any pictures or personal emails. We are lucky we have this kit, called the Sat C, which I am using right now, so at least can get some info off the boat. But it is in the nav station, and off limits normally for other usage, as it safety device as well, where we do all comms with the girls (duty officers) at race headquarters.
Bouwe Bekking - skipper
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GREEN DRAGON LEG FIVE DAY 8 QFB: received 21.02.09 0554 GMT
In the middle of the night we quickly lost speed indicating we must have something caught on the keel. Because it was over 20 knots, we had to bear off, lower the jib and go head to wind and back down. When all said and done, this would have cost us three or four miles.
Today we spent an hour sailing with no mainsail as we had to fix the inboard end of one of our batten sockets. It appears to have just come apart under the load of all this reaching. Fortunately we carry a spare, although as is so often the case the spare wasn't identical so it needed some fine tuning.
I am happy with our easterly position and I am sure the others will have to work this way - it seems to have stopped the loss of miles for a while.
Ian Walker - skipper
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PUMA LEG FIVE DAY 7 QFB: received 20.02.09 1605 GMT
I have been in some smelly situations, but the interior of this boat is rapidly passing them all as a top player in this week's 'smelliest place on earth'.
Think of the situation. Essentially we left Qingdao with everything on our bodies we owned. It was cold, and for two days, very wet. Even with great outer wear, for which I have to plug our buddies at PUMA for knocking it out of the park on their first attempt, everything is damp. And occasionally wet. The entire interior is wet, and everywhere you sit is wet. Thank god for PUMA shorts with gortex butt pads.
And there hasn't been a single second of drying since the start. Blasting across to Japan... Drenching. From Japan through the Black Current... warmer but still very wet on deck. Since then? Non-stop spray. Of the fire house variety. Power reaching (all on port tack) across the Pacific with spray hitting us about every other wave. Zero chance of getting stuff out to dry out the moisture. Combine that with the fact that so much water on deck keeps all the primary hatches shut all the time, and the temperature has now gone from reasonable to quite hot - and you have a pretty sketchy odour right now, living large as if it was a part of the family. By the way, none of us humans smell very peachy either for that matter.
To be honest, our fun fast reaching right after Japan lasted a couple days and slowly turned into drudgingly painful power reaching. That means that the breeze is too far forward for the boat to really get moving, and has all the symptoms of high speed. Water to the face that is and consistent pounding of the bow into every wave. I know I am complaining about going slow, but slow on these boats is under 20, and we are averaging a little over 15 knots. Still not too much to complain about I guess.
And as always, the competition is phenomenal. You would think that in a
12000 plus mile leg you could get out and spread out and relax a bit... anything but that. We live and die on every three hour sched to see how our efforts have been rewarded, or not.
One thing is happening though, the fleet is splitting enough that people are going to start sailing in different weather patterns. What has already happened is that we are all starting to see different breeze variations from the same weather pattern. We have gotten pinned a bit to the southwest of the fleet by the breeze we have been in, while the troops behind have been able to sneak to the east of us. Even though the distance to the finish looks ominous for the boats behind right now, all this could change in an instance. It is a huge ocean out here, and the wind angles can make up some monster differences in a short period of time.
With that said, we also have the scoring gate to contend with as well as two ice gates and the only actual mark we round - Cape Horn. Heck, you could see someone at the back of the pack completely ignore the scoring gate and start planning for the Horn now. You would think this sounds pretty basic, but one thing we also have to contend with is zero knowledge of the distant future with regard to weather. Capey (Andrew Cape - navigator) spends all his time trying to see into a crystal ball with regard to planning our path now with where we want to be a week or even more from now. Pretty tricky stuff. Weather files for the most part don't go out more than a week.
With all that said, we are still a happy lot aboard. Looking forward to drying out in a day or two, but still in the hunt and happy to be heading to Rio.
Kenny Read - skipper
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