22.02.2006
Navigators’ nightmare
The last two days have been a nightmare for the navigators in the Volvo Ocean Race as they scratch their heads and spend hours looking at weather models on their onboard computers, trying to find the best way to approach the ice gate ahead.
Steve Hayles, navigator for Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald), has had a pretty harrowing few days. He has some very clear plans in his mind, but because each team has a restricted number of sails onboard it is not always possible to sail the boat to the optimum place on the race course with the sails they have. “We have to try and double guess what other competitors are going to do, what the weather is going to do and what sails we have to get us closest to where Steve wants us to be,” explained skipper Neal McDonald today. “All in all, the last day or so has been very harrowing for him, and I think over the next days it will be hard work, really hard work, for all the boats.”
Andrew Cape, navigator on movistar (Bouwe Bekking) is pragmatic and says he’s not gambling at all. “We are 160 miles away from Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) and one of us is going to be right and one of us is going to be wrong. We are doing the best we can, but it will go one way or another. I am very happy with where we are.”
Onboard ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Joss), the constant companion of Brasil 1 in the north, the nervous times continue as the team has headed into the ridge of high pressure in a bid to cross it early and reach the new breeze on the other side. “While we are battling it out in five knots of breeze, the majority of the fleet is steaming along at 15 knots and the scheds (position reports) make for very dismal reading.”
Dismal reading indeed tonight for these two as the 2200 GMT position report shows a loss of 21 miles for ABN AMRO TWO and worse for Brasil 1 as they post a loss 44 miles in the last six hours. In the south, movistar in third place and Ericsson Racing Team in fourth place both gained four miles on leading boat, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson), while second placed Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) gained two miles.
LEG FOUR DAY 4, 22.2.06, 2200 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT
Latitude
Longitude
DTF
SMG
24 Hour Run
24 Hour Speed
DTL
DTLC
SGPTS
PTLPTS
PTLPTS
ETA
POP
POSITION OVERALL
1
ABN1
53 00.60S
150 12.72W
05535
12.9
415
17.3
00000
+00000
0
7.0
7.0
10/03/06 __:__:__
45.5
1
2
POTC
52 46.22S
150 56.86W
05538
12.5
395
16.5
00003
+00002
0
6.0
6.0
10/03/06 __:__:__
27.5
4
3
MOVI
52 45.94S
151 08.67W
05543
13.1
406
16.9
00008
+00004
0
5.0
5.0
10/03/06 __:__:__
30.0
3
4
ERIC
52 40.14S
151 55.58W
05557
13.0
370
15.4
00022
+00004
0
4.0
4.0
10/03/06 __:__:__
20.5
6
5
ABN2
51 26.44S
155 05.99W
05610
08.0
286
11.9
00075
-00021
0
3.0
3.0
10/03/06 __:__:__
31.0
2
6
BRA1
50 22.92S
156 35.28W
05642
05.4
241
10.0
00107
-00044
0
2.0
2.0
10/03/06 __:__:__
22.0
5
ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 Brasil 1
ERIC Ericsson Racing Team
MOVI movistar
POTC Pirates of the Caribbean
DTF: distance to finish, SMG: Speed made good, DTL: distance to leader,
DTLC: distance to leader change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll
SGPTS: points scored at scoring gates on this leg to date
PLPTS: projected leg points
PTLPTS: projected total leg points including actual points from scoring gates
PTP: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht maintains current position
Lizzie Green Press Officer at race headquarters:
Tel: +44 1489 554 832, Mob: +44 7801 185 320
Email: lizzie.green@volvooceanrace.org
Sophie Luther Press Assistant at race headquarters
Mob: +44 7956 285548 email: sophie.luther@volvooceanrace.org
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