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Volvo Ocean Race 2011/2012 - Leg 4 - Start 19.02.2012
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February 22, 2012 - 2200 UTC Leg 4 Day 4
TELEFÓNICA IS NEW LEADER AS FLEET LEAVES LUZON STRAIT
Leg 4 22/02/2012 22:02:01 UTC
&xnbsp; DTL DTLC BS DTF 1 TELE 0.00 7 12.2 4671.8 2 GPMA 7.10 3 15.7 4679.0 3 CMPR 16.60 17 19.3 4688.4 4 PUMA 18.30 4 11.3 4690.1 5 ADOR 19.10 1 10.8 4691.0 6 SNYA 21.50 3 10.8 4693.3
CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand (Chris Nicholson/AUS) led the fleet through the Luzon Strait, passing within a mile of the lighthouse marking the southern tip of Taiwan at 1830 UTC tonight. Groupama 4 (Franck Cammas/FRA) and Telefónica (Iker Martínez/ESP) followed. But, at 2200 UTC tonight a new leader had emerged and Telefónica was in back their customary position as leader of the pack.The shake up on the leaderboard is due to decisions taken immediately after clearing the Luzon Strait. CAMPER chose the high road north, while Telefónica is 45 nautical miles to their south. Between the two is Groupama 4.
PUMA’s Mar Mostro (Ken Read/USA) rounded the point in fourth place with Ian Walker and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing less than a mile behind. At the last position report Team Sanya still had four miles to go.Progress through the Luzon Strait was slow but at least possible and not the total glass off that the crews feared and speeds have been building out in the Philippine Sea. For the past three hours, CAMPER has averaged 19.3 knots, while those further south have been sailing progressively slower.“The next part of the leg is about how far east you can get before you dive south towards the Equator,” explained Team Sanya’s skipper Mike Sanderson/NZL. “How much distance to the finish are you prepared to pay to sail east and how far does that take you?”
Like the other five teams, Sanderson and his men had hoped the sail east would be relatively cheap enabling them to then sail with much nicer angles down to the trade winds, but this is not going to be easy. “At the moment, it’s looking like it’s going to be too hard to get east and it’s going to give the fleet a very tight angle to the trades, which means quite a few more days upwind or tight reaching,” he said.On board PUMA’s Mar Mostro, the mood has brightened as they climb two places tonight. Read is upbeat: “A lot can happen yet. We’re staying positive. There’s nobody on board who is down right now. We don’t get points for being 500 miles into a leg, we get them at the finish last time I checked. We’ll be fine,” he said.
&xnbsp; February 22, 2012 - 1000 UTC Leg 4 Day 4
TORTUOUS PROGRESS IN SOUTH CHINA SEA
Leg 4 22/02/2012 10:04:37 UTC
&xnbsp; DTL DTLC BS DTF 1 CMPR 0.00 0 11.3 4723.7 2 SNYA 5.60 6 11.7 4729.3 3 ADOR 7.00 6 11.8 4730.8 4 GPMA 8.60 3 11.8 4732.3 5 TELE 19.40 6 13.7 4743.1 6 PUMA 23.20 7 13.6 4747.0
This morning at 1000 UTC CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand (Chris Nicholson/AUS) were still in the lead, but a change of waypoint* elevated Team Sanya (Mike Sanderson/NZL) into second place, and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) up to third place as the fleet began to feel the effects of the Kuroshio Current or ‘Black Tide’.
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Camper bei Sonnenaufgang
Foto: Hamish Hooper/Camper
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This local current, similar to the Gulf Steam in the north Atlantic, flows north east past Japan and is creating some very big waves and some even bigger crash landings for the boats. The crews are unanimous in their loathing for the torturous conditions.Currently the fleet is heading due east, against the wind in around 22 knots of breeze, heading for a northern crossing of the Luzon Strait to exit the South China Sea.“We just can’t get out of here fast enough,” said PUMA’s skipper Ken Read/USA today. “We are sick of going up wind,” he said as he and his team tried to work out the best way to get east in a weather system that is falling apart.The breeze is forecast to die as the fleet approaches the southern tip of Taiwan at the northern end of the Luzon Strait and it’s a question of playing the fleet but keeping an eye on the global picture.According to Chris Nicholson, the waves have no backs and the landings are severe. “Not too much of a problem in the daylight as we can steer around them, softening the impact on the boat, but a big issue at night time,” he said.
Ian Walker, skipper of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam was barely audible in his call to Race HQ this morning as the conversation was punctuated with loud crashes every few seconds as Azzam’s landed heavily in the bottom of a trough.“We are literally having to steer around every wave,” Walker said. “Right now we have to get out of the South China Seas. It is a God-awful place, certainly no place you want to be sailing up wind at least. Hopefully, in another 100 miles or so, we will poke our nose out and get free of this place.“I am just glad we are not coming through here in 40 knots, which we easily could have been,” he added.The constant crashing is tiring the crews. Sleep is difficult as the motion of the boat makes it hard for the off watch crews just to stay in their bunks.The fleet now is divided by just 19.4 nautical miles from CAMPER in first and PUMA in sixth position and there is no prospect of a let up in the mounting pressure.“Everyone is trekking out towards the southern tip of Taiwan, where the wind is expected to become very fickle. I hope the waves drop before the wind does, or it will make for tortuous progress,” concluded Ian Walker.*
To ensure the accuracy of the race tracker three waypoints are used to calculate the fleet’s distance to finish (DTF) data during the second stage of Leg 4.At 0800 UTC this morning the first waypoint just off the north east tip of the Philippines was replaced by the second waypoint located near the Poor Knights Islands north of Auckland.Waypoint 3 is located just close to Tiritiri Matangi Island and will come into play as the fleet closes in on Auckland at the end of the leg.This morning’s waypoint change elevated Team Sanya to second place and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing to third at the 1000 UTC position report. Groupama dropped to fourth based on the new calculation.
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