Sport-heute: Sailing - Der erste Meilenstein der fünften Etappe ist erreicht!

06. März 2009, 08:29

Der erste Meilenstein der fünften Etappe ist erreicht!

Ericcson 4 hat wieder zugeschlagen und die Punkte bei der ersten Wertung im Torscoring fünf. Damit liegen sie in Führung, gefolgt vom blauen Boot der Telefonica Blue, die knapp vor der Puma liegen. Die Schlacht ist eröffnet und lässt auf die nächsten Tage einen Grosskampf erwarten.

VOLVO OCEAN RACE 2009, 5.3.09 (mk) Direkt von den Yachten

ALL POINTS NORTH

The first milestone of leg five was achieved yesterday, when Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) led the fleet through the first of two scoring gates on leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race, to collect the maximum of four points. The team now has 53 points in total and a lead of 8.5 points over Telefónica Blue in second place. PUMA is just half a point behind the blue Spanish boat in the third podium position.

Hot on the heels of Ericsson 4 at the gate was Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE), who started the leg seven hours after the rest of the fleet left Qingdao in China nearly three weeks ago.

Immediately after passing through the gate, Ericsson 3 made the brave move to point their bows north again, causing Simon Fisher to comment: “We will have to see if their plan was genius or madness.”

Ericsson 3’s navigator, Aksel Magdahl explains: “Until some 24 hours before we tacked away at the 36 south scoring gate, everything looked good to go due south close to New Zealand, with the high pressure system expected to move off to the east. However, 18 hours before the gate, I realised that this high did not seem to move so fast anymore. I was also looking at a very interesting small, but powerful low pressure coming in from the north east, and I thought a bit around whether it was a possibility to use this rather than going slow south underneath the high pressure and even risking getting too close to it.”

The whole fleet has now made the same move. All except Telefónica Blue, who is the southernmost boat in the fleet and is trapped, still waiting for the wind to shift in order to tack. But, on distance to finish, this puts Telefónica Blue into the lead.

“We were the latest to make the decision to turn, which has its pros and cons,” says helmsman Simon Fisher. “We are
probably risking lighter winds than the others, but may get a better shift… We all wait here with baited breath once more.”

The reason for heading north is to avoid the ridge of high pressure, which is blocking the way to the strong westerly winds in the south that everyone was so looking forward to. Instead, this could mean sailing upwind for at least another 1000 miles in order to pass north of the high.

“What is up with this leg? I had envisioned us screaming along in the roaring forties and pushing hard to break our 24-hour record soon after passing the first scoring gate. Instead, here we find ourselves, sailing upwind in an easterly breeze and contemplating how to negotiate a tropical cyclone that lies ahead. For God’s sake, we are below 40 degrees south! Give us some downwind sailing and let these Volvo 70s do what they do best,” writes a disappointed Ryan Godfrey from Ericsson 4.

Telefónica Blue has also been sailing heavily reefed while the crew glued patches onto the bottom half of the mainsail, which had completely delaminated.
“It plays on your nerves as you know you are sailing slow, but you just have to be patient, there is nothing you can do,” said skipper Bouwe Bekking.

The next milestone on this 12,300 nautical mile marathon will be the first of two ice gates located southeast of New Zealand at 47 degrees South between the longitudes of 155 west and 140 west. The second gate is set approximately 1,500 nm west of Chile at 45 degrees south between 120 west and 105 west.

In both cases, the intention is to keep the fleet north of known ice masses, and, in both cases, a team must be on, or north, of the designated latitude at some point between the two stated lines of longitude.

“It means the fleet can cross through the gate from south to north, or from north to south, or just stay north of the gate,” explains Race Director Jack Lloyd, who adds that the net result is that the fleet will be directed north. Telefónica Blue is approximate 916 nm north west of the western end of the gate and 114 due north of the Chatham Islands.

Meanwhile Telefónica Black, one of two yachts to retire from leg four due to damage, has arrived at the Marina Da Gloria, the site of the Rio de Janeiro stopover, after being shipped from Singapore.

Skipper, Fernando Echávarri/ESP said, “We are going to spend two weeks repairing the boat and then we will have several days to train and check before the in-port race on 4 April.” The sailing crew will be based in Rio during the next few weeks to help the shore crew and Echávarri himself will arrive on 15 March to oversee the repair work.

Leg Five Scoring Gate 1 positions
1. Ericsson 4: 00:21.09 GMT 04.03.09: 4 points
2. Ericsson 3: 00:53.09 GMT 04.03.09: 3.5 points
3. PUMA: 01:03.24 GMT 04.03.09: 3 points
4. Telefónica Blue: 03:16.22 GMT 04.03.09: 2.5 points
5. Green Dragon: 04:31.49 GMT 04.03.09: 2 points

Leg Five Day 20: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)

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ERICSSON 4 LEG FIVE DAY 20 QFB: received 05.03.09 1305 GMT

Good evening from Ericsson 4.

What is up with this leg? I had envisioned us screaming along in the roaring forties and pushing hard to break our 24hr record soon after passing the first scoring gate. Instead, here we find ourselves sailing upwind in an easterly breeze and contemplating how to negotiate a tropical cyclone that lay ahead. For God’s sake, we are below 40 degrees south latitude! Give us some downwind sailing and let these Volvo 70s do what they do best.

The mood onboard of late has been a little mixed. We are all disappointed to have lost our hard earned lead and are now curiously waiting to see how the positions will settle down after the split fleet start to come together again. Sailing conditions were quite mild today with relatively flat seas, although the temperature, both water and air is rapidly dropping. The evening sky tonight was particularly attractive with no clouds, thousands of stars, and a constant loom of light to the south reminding us of our summertime, southern location.

There have been some chocolate crimes today as our daily allowance of one bar per person pulled up short. No great dramas as we could just pull out the new day bag, but for how much longer is that an option? With all this upwind sailing it feels like our ETA will just continue to get delayed and food stocks rationed. Here’s hoping for a change to come.

Was also Nipper’s birthday today - nothing special happened - but we all shook his hand.

Other than that all good on Ericsson 4.

Ryan Godfrey - bowman

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PUMA Leg Five Day 20 QFB: received 05.03.09 0353 GMT (2)

Close but no cigar! Not literally, because we still have a few left over from Micky's (Michael Mueller/GER) baby shower...but figuratively.

After nearly 6000 miles of sailing the scoring gate was decided while going through a weather ridge about 500 miles from the scoring gate. Essentially Ericsson 4, Ericsson 3 and ourselves were lined up about one mile from each other ready for action. We took the leeward side expecting a large header. The breeze did head, but after a cloud literally came in and took Ericsson 4 away over the horizon in front of us. Ericsson 3 was next, off to about a 2 mile lead. Then il Mostro.

What ensued was a high speed port tack very wet reach, which had pretty much nothing in it. When we finally bailed out and started for the ice gate still 10 miles or so away from the scoring gate it was Ericsson 4 and Ericsson 3 who held on to nip us by almost exactly the amount they nudged us by at the ridge. A frustrating third, but I have said before and will say again - not for lack of trying. The boys aboard are in great spirits and we have preached a short memory. Time to concentrate on winning the gate at Cape Horn.

One thing that ceases to amaze me out here is the quickness of climate change. It seems like it went from sweating hot to four layer cold in about a day. Literally a day. We have a bit of a reprieve now, but we are in for an upwind slog for a couple days before we can get to some quick reaching to take us to the first ice gate. From there on it is anyone's guess.

Except for a few new cases of the ‘throw up and pooping flu’, all is well aboard. The bug has almost knocked off all of us by now. Slowly and painfully. Capey (Andrew Cape) and Justin (Justin Ferris) have been the latest victims. But studs that they are, they have not missed a watch or a weather download analysed. Very impressive because, to be honest, they both looked like crap. Both have turned the corner though. And since I share a bunk with Capey I can say that my time is probably right around the corner. I am hoovering vitamins and water to try and ward it off, as well as sleeping with my jacket as a pillow and not our regular camping pillow - one of life's little luxuries aboard the yacht. Really hope I can keep this illness at bay.

One funny thing...Jerry Kirby and I live in the northeast US in Newport, RI. Our friends and family emails to the boat routinely are full of phrases like ‘it is so miserable here because we have a foot of snow’ and, ‘you aren't missing out on anything by not being here because the weather sucks...’ You get the drift. He and I always get a chuckle when we get these notes. And we are sure that everyone has the best intentions, kind of like trying to share in weather misery with us. But to her credit my wife Kathy finally caught herself today and said something like... 'would like to complain about the weather etc but I realise you have been on a gutted out race boat with 11 guys for 20 days now and I don't think I have a leg to stand on’....

How true. So to all back home - for us - cosy up in front of the fire after taking a hot shower and have a glass of Shiraz - with a nice thick steak. I am pretty sure that was the dream I had last off watch anyway. All is well on il Mostro and the more miserable it is, will only make the wine and steak taste all the better in Rio.

Kenny Read - skipper
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TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 20 QFB: received 05.03.09 0800 GMT

Some very mixed feelings onboard of Telefónica Blue. First the dramatic weather change and the threat of the high pressure system moving very far south, basically blocking the strong westerlies wind.

Worse, this means sailing upwind for at least another 1000 miles. Still we were very keen to be the southernmost boat, and we made very good progress, which is a nice surprise. Why? Since 36 hours ago, our bottom part of the mainsail is completely delaminated. The sail has Kevlar strings running over all the loading points, which are covered by a Mylar film, which basically is preventing the breeze blowing through. Now that Mylar film has disintegrated, and is not attached to Kevlar any more and big holes have appeared in the mainsail. It looked more or less as if 10 men had emptied their guns with our main as a target.

So since yesterday we have been sailing with one reef in the main, not ideal, but what else can we do. This morning when the wind dropped a little, the repair forces have to come out. Jordi (Jordi Calafat/ESP) as the leading sailmaker, wanted to do a perfect job, but the more he looked at the sail, the more evitable it became that the job was nearly hopeless. So out has come the 5200, a sort of Sikaflex. It is almost bulletproof and has very high glue capabilities and is able to cure under water.

With this Jordi has been trying to stick big panels of Kevlar and Cuben fibre repair material onto the mainsail. Of course that was more boatbuilding than sailmaking so David (David Vera/ESP) came in action. To do the job, we had to lower the main to the third reef and have been sailing like that for about seven hours.

It plays on your nerves as you know you are sailing slow, but you just have to patient, nothing what you can do. Heat blankets had to come out, to help kicking off the 5200 a bit quicker. Now the job is done, just before sunset, but still sailing with one reef, to let the repair job cure more. David’s foul weather gear must be 100% watertight again, as he managed to cover himself in the 5200, and his gear is whiter than their original colour blue.

Now we have to wiggle ourselves over the top of the high pressure system, then tack, it will be very slow progress..............who said we were going to be in Rio in 34 days, was very wrong!!!!! But plenty of food on our fine vessel.

Cheers,

Bouwe Bekking - skipper

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