8:15 PM Sun 21 Dec 2008 GMT
Latest news from the Volvo fleet as they head to Singapore.
KOSATKA TEAM RUSSIA LEG THREE DAY 9 QFB: received 21.12.08 1000 GMT
Is it chess or rolling the dice?
As the fleet is becoming compressed, we see opportunities on the horizon, 300 mile to the finish. Our closest friends, Green Dragon and Telef?nica Black have split and we want to catch at least one of them. Hours over sat pics, grib files and quickscat, heads together for Nick Bubb, Stig Westergaard, Wouter Verbraak and myself and still the question is: is it a plan we have or pure speculation? So far, the models haven't been too good in this part of the world. The first mark of the exclusion zone is currently dead downwind, so one side will pay and we have chosen the eastern side. Fingers crossed.
The amount of shipping in the straits is impressive and the AIS is extremely valuable in finding the lanes between the bigger brothers. Yesterday we were racing 'Matilda, a sizeable tanker for hours in the absence of a sailing yacht. In the end she couldn't keep up with our pointing, was footing off a bit and gained ground to leeward.
Getting closer to land the garbage in the water increases and we regularly dodge plastic, cans, timber and other bits and pieces giving evidence of close civilization.
Andreas Hanakamp - skipper
Today is known on our boat as 'D-Day': 'Do or die' - make or break. We will have to punch through and if we do, our Christmas ETA is looking pretty good. If we don't, well, we might spend it here and have to ring the shore crew to have some Christmas leftovers send to us.
So right now, we are pedal to the metal in the stronger wind fan that precedes the windless passage. Life is good, and the Malacca Straits are giving us some of the best sailing in the world. Sure, there is plenty of traffic, but our AIS system is doing a fantastic job. Mandatory for the Singapore Straits, this device sends our direction and speed to all commercial ships within 20 nm range. We appear on their screens as a dot with a tag: 'Kosatka Racing Yacht, limited manoeuvrability'. So far, this has worked like a very powerful insect repellent. None of the cargo ships want to have anything to do with us, and whilst we are blasting (or drifting like last night) along, the armada of cargo ships magically opens up in front of us. Brilliant!
The weather models are far from reliable here, so we are relying heavily on the position reports. They are pretty much our weather forecast for the next 150 NM. A sea breeze is forecast to develop this afternoon along the Malaysian shore, so we are aiming for that. The exact transition between the NE winds that we are in now and the westerly sea breeze however is as crucial as it is difficult to predict. If we can reach the zone in good shape, we will have good breeze for the remainder of the afternoon. So every report is awaited with even more eagerness than before, and any delay in it coming in via our satellite communication is making us eat our hats.
With Christmas dinner on our minds now almost all the time as we have rationed our food, we are hungrier than ever to get through this next stretch. That is a big up according to someone the boat, quoting: 'Hungry wolves hunt the best'. Yeah, whatever, I could do with a good steak right now; that would be just fine. Thinking of that, the next position report is due in every minute. Better check it out!
Wouter Verbraak - navigator
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PUMA LEG THREE DAY 9 QFB: received 21.12.08 0408 GMT
The Malacca Straits are doing what they were meant to do, narrowing the fleet down into a funnel and slowing us down, generally making life as frustrating and unpredictable as possible. Done deal.
The leg has progressed and I have to admit that I'm really pleased with how we have chipped back after an average (at best) first half of our Bay of Bengal trip. Coming into the corner of Sumatra we created a plan and followed Ericsson 3 around the corner in fourth. As day broke, we were greeted with a very wide tide line and as much bizarre stuff in the water as I have ever seen.
One black cloud came through and I am not sure if it was the cloud that got Ericsson 3 or stuff in the water, but we put them back pretty nicely to move into third. Chipping away. We kept working hard to get to the north and paid for that mileage early, but later in the day, the strategy paid as well. Telef?nica Blue tacked out of their southern position to come all the way out to us and tacked on our line only three miles away. Again, we were pretty pleased, since about three days earlier they were about 60 miles away.
The team pressed hard through last night and the expected breeze built and big right shift finally came through. We squeaked past T-Blue into second and put some serious miles on the rest of the fleet. Let's go get Ericsson 4!
And that is where the fairy tale came to a (hopefully temporary) screeching halt. We have parked about 30 miles off the Malaysian coast and watched the boats sail up behind us including Ericsson 3 who is about a mile away. T-Blue got back around us and we are completely drifting as we speak. Amazingly, Ericsson 4 never has really gotten reeled in by their own personal 'glass off' of no wind, not yet anyway. My guess is that all our times will come at some point...
So now we roll some craps. Who will get the little zephyr first to launch them away from the pack? Who can sustain just a hair more wind-pressure then the others? Many times it is in the hands of the wind Gods. But you have to make your own luck and it is time that il mostro made some light air luck.
On board spirits are generally good. The Great Plastic Fork Ordeal has run its course and we are down to our last four and even they are in dire straits. But somehow we will survive.
We keep getting great notes from our families who have arrived in Singapore, all saying that we will love it there. A bit of a break for weary bones I can tell you that. My daughter Tory already sent me a 'to do' list that is supposedly 'partial'. Big plans for us she said. Well I can speak for the entire team that we can't wait to get to shore, hopefully with a hard earned solid result in our pocket as well. That would make for a much more enjoyable Christmas that's for sure.
Kenny Read - skipper
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DELTA LLOYD LEG THREE DAY 9 QFB: received 21.12.08 0353 GMT
We've made it to the relatively calm water of the Malacca Straits. It's nice to not have to worry about every wave that we crash into anymore. We are sailing along at a pretty nice pace all things considered. It's the nice thing about a VO70, even with the throttle pulled way back, it's pretty easy to click off miles rapidly on the odometer. Right now we are sailing at about 9 or 10 knots. Not too bad.
We were a bit nervous about our first tack, as we had to sail around an island yesterday afternoon. We made it very slow and had 3 guys with their head's in the keel ram compartments as we rolled through the tack. There were some crunching and cracking sounds from the broken side of the boat, but all seems to be OK. We now have the confidence to sail on both tacks, which is a stress relief and also a sign that we will be able to finish leg 3 under sail.
Matthew Gregory - navigator
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TELEF?NICA BLUE LEG THREE DAY 9 QFB: received 21.12.08 0642 GMT
We are having a proper yacht race on our hand, as we are in sight of the shoebox (PUMA) and Ericsson 3. We had a great battle with Puma in the last 24 hours. They were reeling us in during the daytime, but once it became dark, we got the upper hand again.
We have seen that a couple of times now. We seem to make our best gains in the hours of darkness. We had some amazing sailing last evening and night, the breeze increased from 10 knots to 22 in matter of minutes. All hands on deck to drop the light air sails and to get a jib and small staysail on. Since this wind change came so fast, none of us had their foul weather gear on, so in matter of seconds we were all soaked, as the boatspeed increased from 11 knots to around 20 knots. But, since the water temperature is nearly 30 degrees, nobody cared, we were all happy that we had good breeze, a gain, and could make some fast miles towards the barn. And above all, some guys needed badly a shower, so that solved that problem.
We sailed for hours neck and neck with Puma, only a couple of boat lengths separated us. A real shame that it was dark, as otherwise, it would have been an amazing sight. Then we slowly gained on them and we separated more and more.
We made a lucky call with a fishing boat; at least I assumed it was that type of boat, as they only displayed some very small white lights. Jordi (Jordi Calafat/ESP) was driving and asked me what I preferred, going to windward or to leeward. Then at the last minute, I saw a small light well to weather, presumably the end of fishing net, so called to go to leeward. We passed them within 30 metres, and they must have been wondering what the heck was flying past them, as there not that many fast sailing boats in this region.
Now it looks like the sea breeze is filling in, and it will become a gybing dual the rest of the day. It looks like not many miles to go, but everything can happen. One minute you think you are doing ok, and then a big wind change can reverse the order of ranking very quickly. Hopefully we get in tomorrow, so that on the 23rd I can go Christmas shopping for my girls. Gabri (Gabriele Olivo MCM) just reminded me of that 'event'. These kinds of things are easy to forget when you are out on the water, as the commercial Christmas circus and media doesn't reach us out here.
First gybe is coming up in 10 minutes. We have some real estate in front of us, in the form of Malaysia.
Cheers,
Bouwe Bekking - skipper
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 | The day after the keel structure broke. Ed van Lierde is steering the boat with 11 knots upwind to Sumatra, still in the race. Sailing J4 and reef in the main. Steering Gerd-Jan Poortman, next in the sun Ed van Lierde, Martin Watts, Ryan Houston and Matt Gregory The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008, it will, for - Sander Pluijm-Team Delta Lloyd- VolvoOcean Race © Click Here to view large photo |
by Various Volvo Ocean Race competitors
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Lord Howe Island Windy Point, NSW
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