15.04.2006
Trades and losses - Wochenbericht
Light winds plagued the Volvo Ocean Race teams as they fought their way to the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha in the first week of leg five from Rio de Janeiro to Balitmore. Thankfully for all involved, week two saw the winds gods finally give the teams a helping hand on their race north.
After the scoring gate, which movistar (Bouwe Bekking) rounded first by a mere minute, the battle was on for the lead. Unfortunately for the Spanish team, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) snatched the lead rather quickly after the gate and has held it ever since.
By day seven it was time for King Neptune to visit the teams once again as they crossed back into the northern hemisphere. The equator came and went on some Volvo Open 70’s with quiet happiness while others celebrated in big style. The crew changes that have occurred since leg two forced the King of the Sea to return and initiate the equator crossing virgins. Movistar went all out when Neptune actually graced them with an appearance, having an uncanny resemblance to their new crew member, ocean racing veteran Mikey Howard, but with fewer teeth.
The next hurdle was dodging the Doldrums which all the teams handled very well, hardly stopping at all but this signified for many the turning point in the race where thoughts move to life after the Volvo Ocean Race. But soon all attention was firmly back on the race at hand as the northeast trade winds filled in and speeds rose in the cooler temperatures.
The battle for third commenced on day eight as Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) put on his red jacket and chased down those Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard). By 2200 they had pushed past them and were ecstatic as they pulled away. Horatio Carabelli explained how fired up the crew were by their rival’s near proximity, “The fight with Pirates has motivated the whole crew and although Pirate Cayard and his Black Pearl and bunch of dead men’s chests are a tough herd to beat, we have been recovering precious miles, we can see him a couple of miles to windward. We are nearly all newcomers to this game, especially me, but the knowledge of Marcel van Triest has been really a helping hand at the wheel, sometimes we decide to try another way but we realize that, really, the devil knows.”
By Monday 10 April all the teams were fully on the trade wind train but unfortunately for the young guns on ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) they languished at the back and couldn’t keep in touch with the rest of the yachts. But their youthful humour never faded with the stress. A nomination of Scott Bevis for the Musto Seamanship Award was sent in from the yacht after he dived into the sweltering boat to fix the broken fans, risking life and limb as his crew mates tempers frayed in the heat. Luckily for them his quick thinking saved the team from getting too hot under the collar.
The Pirates and Brazilian battle recommenced on day 10 when the breeze lifted for the teams. The constant wind direction for the past days had led to some teams happily using their best sails and managing some great speeds, while Paul Cayard complained how he was stuck sailing with a sail he didn’t think was fast. But as the breeze lifted so did the Pirates spirits as they heaved up a new faster sail and overtook their rivals and regained third.
The lift in the breeze also signified a decision time onboard ABN AMRO ONE as they tried to calculate whether to take a hit by sailing to the west and losing miles on their rivals behind or carry on and potentially lose at a later stage. They went for the hit as they came parallel to the Caribbean Islands and the whole fleet gained on them temporarily.
Everyone began to enjoy the fantastic sailing conditions but the straight line sailing was wearing a little thin for some. Bekking on movistar started counting down the miles to the Chesapeake Bay were he hopes for an opportunity to catch leader ABN AMRO ONE.
The wish for more tactical sailing came true though only a day later with the arrival of very varying winds on day 11, which caused a stir throughout the teams. All the yachts gained on ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson), putting the pressure on Sanderson. He admitted that even though it must look like plain sailing from onshore, all the teams could be thrown a curve ball by the weather in the near future. “For now we are still sailing up the side of the Caribbean and so are in the north east trades, which are shifting around fairly systematically from day to do, both in strength and direction. But the forecast has us dealing with the bad side of a couple of lows as well as a high pressure ridge between the Caribbean and the entrance to the Chesapeake.”
With renewed enthusiasm that some passing opportunities were close, the afterguards on the yachts perked up. John Kostecki onboard Ericsson spoke of his revitalised crew, “There is plenty of sailing reindexing on this leg and we are feeling ready for a scrap!” With this attitude they managed on day 12 to sneak past Brasil 1 into fourth.
The massive stationary front that sits between the racers and their goal of Baltimore has been a cause for concern. Mike Sanderson summed up what every skipper must be feeling at this point very nicely, “Right now we are in the middle of this massive stationary front, and so very changeable conditions are to be expected, that makes sched time all that more stressful as you really have no idea how you have been going. A pretty classic example of that was just in this last report where movistar and us are only 30 miles apart and we had wind directions that where 60 degrees different! There will be some big games of snakes and ladders going on while we are in this stuff.”
The tricky conditions really started to show up yesterday when many miles were lost to the leader. Pirates of the Caribbean had an especially hard time losing 27 nautical miles in six hours. The first of their problems began with their massive spinnaker splitting at the seams and secondly an electronic problem onboard led to their batteries dropping to a very low level. The problem was eventually found to be a loose wire and was mended. The only consolation for the team was that at the same time all the other yachts dropped back massively, losing many miles. The tricky times look set to stay till the finish of the leg as the fleet leave the pleasurable trade winds in their wake and sail into the unpredictable North American frontal regimes.
LEG FIVE DAY 14, 15.04.06, 1600 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT
Latitude
Longitude
DTF
SMG
24 Hour Run
24 Hour Speed
DTL
DTLC
SGPTS
PLPTS
PTLPTS
ETA
POP
PREDICTED POSITION OVERALL
1
ABN1
30 30.87N
069 45.07W
00624
09.8
296
12.4
00000
+00000
3
7.0
10.0
17/04/06
62.5
1
2
MOVI
29 58.19N
069 12.52W
00667
07.1
302
12.6
00043
-00016
3.5
6.0
9.5
17/04/06
40.5
2
3
POTC
28 22.68N
067 54.38W
00785
05.5
321
13.4
00161
-00028
2.5
5.0
7.5
18/04/06
39.0
4
4
ERIC
27 52.92N
067 23.92W
00825
08.3
304
12.6
00201
-00011
2
4.0
6.0
18/04/06
29.5
6
5
BRA1
27 50.98N
067 20.55W
00828
08.3
310
12.9
00204
-00010
1.5
3.0
4.5
18/04/06
33.0
5
6
ABN2
27 46.51N
066 26.08W
00861
11.2
346
14.4
00237
+00006
1
2.0
3.0
19/04/06
39.5
3
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
POP: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht indextains 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
To receive the latest positions and breaking news on your mobile telephone, text “Alert” to 0046 737 494949
Images
Royalty free images for editorial use are available from the Image Archive at http://media.vemuk.com
Tel: 44+ 1489 554832 Mobile: +44 7801 185 320 Email: images@volvooceanrace.org for assistance.
Port accreditation and sign up to the Volvo Ocean Race press information service is available online at https://accreditation.volvooceanrace.org .
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 index 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.
- The Volvo Ocean Race 2001-02 achieved a cumulative audience of over 800 million viewers ranking it among the top international sporting events.
- Further information can be found at www.volvooceanrace.org .
|
