14.05.2006
Whale of a time
Things often happen in threes, and skipper Mike Sanderson and his team onboard ABN AMRO ONE have had three experiences today, out in the Atlantic, which they are not keen to repeat in a hurry.
“There are three things out here that we fear the most,” said Sanderson in a radio interview today. “One is having a tactical decision not pan out and we found ourselves in the north with a weather system changing, so we decided that we had to get out of there, and we rocketed from one end of the leaderboard to the other.
“As we were doing that, the adventures continued and suddenly we realised we were losing keel pressure and we got the awful, sinking feeling that you get on a canting keel boat as we found out we had lost all the oil out of keel system and we were losing cant. We battled with that and we are back up and running now.
“These things happen in threes, and about four hours ago we had the misfortune of hitting a whale. It stopped the boat dead and sheered off one of our dagger boards and has done some damage around the case. We have carried a spare dagger board for the whole race and it looks like it might have paid off. We have managed to stop and put the spare board in and we are back up to speed. The big question for us is: what is the extent of the damage in the case. We can see some cracking on the inside but we are not seeing any movement and it all seems fine at the moment. We’re just playing it semi softly at the moment and not pushing the boat to 100 per cent until we get some comfort back that the structural integrity is there.”
As for the whale? The crew are sure it was a whale that they collided with as they saw its tail slide down the side of the boat. It was dark and there was no way that the whale could see the boat coming or the crew to see the whale in the path of Black Betty. Sanderson says that it appeared to swim away after the accident so hopefully, a few aspirin later, it will be fine!
Adventures at sea aside, for the last six hours, the fleet has continued it’s relentless beat up the north east coast and it has been very cold, foggy and generally miserable. Positions have reshuffled as the fleet tack back and forth and set up for a lane to take them around a high pressure system that is building over Newfoundland.
Paul Cayard, skipper of Pirates of the Caribbean, says the choice of which lane to take is not easy. “The closer you go to the high (inside lane), the shorter course you sail but you have less wind. The further away from the centre (outside lane), the longer the course, but you sail with more wind.”
Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) is set up more to the inside (north in this case), while ABN AMRO ONE and Ericsson (Neal McDonald) are set up on the outside (south), with the rest of the fleet sandwiched in the middle. “For us it is so far so good,” says Simon Fisher from ABN AMRO TWO. “We are positioned close to our competitors on the side we want. Hopefully, as the breeze starts to free off over the next 24 hours, we can start to reap the rewards of the last few day’s efforts,” he said.
Movistar (Bouwe Bekking) is the furthest to the inside, and is, perhaps, about to play a very dangerous game. It may be possible for Bekking and his team to punch through the high pressure, lose miles but then gain them back later with a strong northerly position. “A dangerous game, taking on a high and low percentage option I would have thought,” says Brunel’s navigator, Will Oxley. “But, with the potential to smoke us all if it works,” he adds.
Will they try it or will the next position report show them having tacked to port to follow the rest of the fleet under the high?
LEG SEVEN DAY 04, 1600 GMT POSITION REPORT
Leg Position
Yacht
Latitude
Longitude
DTF
SMG
24 Hour Run
24 Hour Speed
DTL
DTL-C
Projected Leg Points
Total Projected Leg Points
ETA
Projected Overall Race Points
Projected Position Overall
1
BRA1
43 23.97N
060 02.10W
02405
10.2
199
08.3
00000
+00000
7.0
7.0
25/05/06 __:__:__
49.0
3
2
POTC
43 10.00N
060 12.19W
02420
10.6
194
08.1
00015
+00000
6.0
6.0
26/05/06 __:__:__
53.5
2
3
ERIC
42 46.66N
059 47.74W
02421
11.4
217
09.0
00016
+00000
5.0
5.0
26/05/06 __:__:__
39.5
6
4
ABN2
43 13.96N
060 19.34W
02421
10.5
204
08.5
00016
+00000
4.0
4.0
26/05/06 __:__:__
46.0
5
5
ABN1
42 29.77N
059 36.41W
02426
11.6
214
08.9
00021
+00010
3.0
3.0
26/05/06 __:__:__
73.5
1
6
AUS1
42 59.17N
060 17.70W
02429
10.8
202
08.4
00024
+00006
2.0
2.0
26/05/06 __:__:__
4.5
7
7
MOVI
43 53.05N
061 10.24W
02431
09.6
190
07.9
00026
-00001
1.0
1.0
26/05/06 __:__:__
48.0
4
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
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Email: sacha.oswald@volvooceanrace.org
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The Volvo Ocean Race
- The Volvo Ocean Race is a round the world yacht race featuring nine offshore legs, over 31,250 nautical miles. The 2005-06 features an inshore race at each of the main stopover ports.
- Four teams from the last race measured the media value of their exposure. The results showed an average of US$50 million, which equates to a 200-300% return on their sponsorship investment.
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