Sport-heute: Sailing - An einem Tag wie diesem.....

13. März 2009, 14:42

An einem Tag wie diesem.....

oder - Wenn alles schief läuft....

An einem Tag wie diesem, wirst du dich fragen - wieso hast du diesen Sport gewählt. Es giesst in Strömen - schon stundenlang und wir haben nur leichte Brise. Mit unserem kaputten Masten mit dem grossen Segel sind wir völlig aufgeschmissen. Wir haben nur die beiden kleinen Segel gespannen und die, ich meine, die Lächeln uns so freundlich an, dass mir die Worte fehlen. Mit 3-4 Knoten geht es im Moment vorwärts. Wenn jetzt die Winde jeweils wechseln müssen wir die Segel austauschen. Dies geht aber nicht mit unseren Wärmehandschuhen. So müssen die Jungs jedesmal blitzschnell die Handschuhe ausziehen und bei grosser Kälte die Segel aufspannen. Eines ist aber ausgezeichnet, unsere sogenannten Entenjagdstiefel, die bis zu den Knien reichen geben jede Menge Wärme und halten uns schön warm. Auf unseren Köpfen haben wir Helme, Hüte, Goretexkappen einfach hat jeder dass an, was ihm passt. (Telefonica Blue)

Volvo Ocean Race, 13.3.09 (mk) TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 28 QFB: received 13.03.09 1027 GMT

Another day of ‘following the ridge’ into the ice gate. 220 miles to go before we can finally bear away onto a spinnaker again. We get a much cleaner transition into the fronts that will take us to Cape Horn than the others, who have had a fair bit of upwind after rounding the gate so that’s a bonus I guess! We’ll take anything at the moment!

Heaps of talk re timings at the moment, every time I go on deck, I make sure that I’ve got all the vital arrival statistics in my head such as distances, timings etc. If I slip up and give a distance that is not fully consistent with one I gave earlier, they are onto me in an instant like a pack of hungry seagulls!

Hard to say re timings to the finish – if we get lots of downwind, then we are fine, if its reaching or upwind, then we are way off our normal pace. Finding some interesting combinations of sails to use though, not many would get a mention in our normal sail crossover chart, but in our dramatically simplified one in use at the moment, they work really well compared with the alternatives. The rig is fine – completely stable, our only handicap is not being able to hoist jibs.

So it’s into the big downwind from tomorrow night, starting off pretty moderate but it looks like we have a good three days or so of heavy running. These boats are so powerful that they don’t really need any more than 25kts downwind to be at their fastest – any more breeze than that just gets closer and closer to survival conditions where you have to start throttling back. All the traditional adages about where to sail in the Southern Ocean generally revolve around looking for the biggest breeze, now it’s all about looking for breeze that is strong but not so strong that you can’t use it properly.

Heater is on for a few hours each night now, downstairs is now awesome with things getting dry again. Will get a tad more humid down here once some water starts coming over the bow again though. We are all looking forward to high speeds towards home though – that’s worth getting wet for.

Tom Addis - navigator
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TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 28 QFB: received 13.03.09 0919 GMT

On days like this you are wondering if you couldn’t have chosen another sport to compete in. It has been pouring with rain without mercy all day again. Snow would have been much nicer, as you don’ get so wet.

We are still bumping into the ridge of high pressure all the time, sometimes good breeze, than all of sudden the breeze drops. The easy thing is that we can only choose out of two sails, both furling sails, so the manoeuvres are swift.

The big problem is for the guys who are wearing the diving gloves when we have to do the sail change. You have to take your gloves off, otherwise your functionality goes down. These gloves have rubber seals around the wrists, and are beautifully warm as long they are dry, but a pain in the neck to put on/off. Once off then the problem for them is where to put them, without getting wet or damp. So some are wearing these, while others prefer the neoprene gloves, which are always wet, but always warm. No complaints of anybody having cold feet, as our so called duck hunting boots are doing a job fantastic. There is although a big mixture in what kind of protection people wear on their heads. The range goes from a normal woven hat, neoprene balaclava, fleece balaclava, Gore-Tex balaclava and so-called seal skin hats and everybody has his own favourite.

So it is upwind again, 24 hours more of this and then we can hopefully turn the ‘corner’ and head towards the Horn, at least it will feel if we are making miles in the right direction.

Bouwe Bekking - skipper

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GREEN DRAGON LEG FIVE DAY 28 QFB: received 13.03 09 0847 GMT

Three milestones today onboard the Green Dragon. First, we are celebrating our third birthday of the leg - Happy Birthday Tom Braidwood. Tom project managed the build of the Dragon so perhaps it is appropriate that he celebrates his birthday onboard. Secondly, today marks one month at sea since leaving China.

For many of us this is a personal record. Thirdly we have just passed the ice gate at 45 degrees south and have now set our course for Cape Horn 1900 miles away. Thank God for that - it really didn't feel right heading north!

The next four or five days are going to be a real test for navigators and sailors alike. There is a deep low pressure system that will cut across our path with winds in excess of 50 knots in places. This gives an opportunity to sail over the top of the low pressure as Ericsson 3 did east of New Zealand – the question is do you really want to put yourself in the path of these winds? To not do so could leave you in light air or headwinds and losing hundreds of miles. Needless to say we are monitoring the development of this low pressure closely - we don't have to decide anything just yet.

Life onboard is not too bad at the moment. We saw the sun today and tonight we are sailing under bright stars and a full moon. It's a little chilly, but not as cold as when we were further south.

Food as always is a source of most complaints. Yesterday our food bag was missing a meal - something we can ill afford right now when we know we are going to run out before getting to Rio. We took the last meal out of day 40 as a temporary replacement. We have also started putting the next day’s food out the night before so the night watches have some snacks. The problem now is that everything is typically gone by breakfast and it is a long day with only two freeze dried meals and no snacks. Soon I think we will have to divide everything up between 11 of us so there can be no argument about stealing all the snacks/ sweets. To be honest I can only see this situation getting worse between now and the finish.

The great thing now is it does feel like the finish is in sight. In our minds we broke this huge leg down into more manageable chunks. These were exiting China Sea, the Doldrums, New Zealand scoring waypoint, ice gate one, ice gate two, Cape Horn, and finish. As you can see from the list we have five down and two to go.

Ian Walker - skipper

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ERICSSON 4 LEG FIVE DAY 28 QFB: received 13.03.09 0638 GMT

Friday the 13th! Have not had much wind all day - is this due to the high or something supernatural?? - The high of course and the sunny and clear conditions brought a wave of smiles with it.

It’s amazing how the daylight hours have changed over the last week or so as we have headed east – it’s hard to keep up with sunrise each day – especially from my dark, dank cave in the back of the yacht.

Everything now feels wet or damp as the moisture in all clothes and the air just feels cold. The condensation inside the yacht is everywhere and as you brush past any item you get a soaking arm or leg. Seeing your breath is the norm – but you get used to it knowing that it’s just a question of time now ‘till we are warm an dry and clean and free once more.

Although not as far south it’s as cold as I remember the 2001 race. In those days weight was everything and we were given a list of clothing we were allowed to take – maybe with an extra thermal top sneaked onboard. On board the 70s it’s a lot wetter so there are no real clothing amount rules – as long as it fits within your bag and is stacked it’s ok – but this does often result in the odd discarded sock being found lying around. The only way to dry your gear is to wear it as we are on fuel rations – so no heater.

The 2001 race was also littered with icebergs, some of the lads want to see some to tick the box, but none who did the 2001 edition want a repeat of that, but it’s been a hot topic after the Dragon’s sightings earlier this week.

They are beautiful but obviously very dangerous and I wouldn’t fancy having to avoid a big one as they are very often the size of the Isle of Wight big, not just a few hundred metres – you could find yourself having to beat round one to get to the windward ‘safer’ side, and we have had enough upwind work!

We kind of resemble a collection of tramps in our various versions of the same clothing – Tony (Tony Mutter) for example has cut the peak off his ‘Elma Fudd’ style duck hunter’s hat and looks a little like Baldrick, Blackadder’s faithful sidekick (British TV show Blackadder)!

Most are sporting more facial hair than ever before – or at least more than they will own up to. I often expect to see a few of the lads huddled round a big oil drum on the back of the yacht, complete with fire, warming their hands – straight out of a NY street set. All we are missing are the cardboard boxes and the shopping trolley with three wheels.

The food just seems to vanish – even the boat’s most unpleasant snack – a beef jerky style food type, which I swear is a mammal but definitely not beef. Ryan (Ryan Godfrey) is sure it’s ‘large rodent’ jerky and I think he has a very good point.

Jules (Jules Salter) can be seen at the navstation with a silver survival blanket over his lap; it’s the type which you see draped over marathon runners at the finish that looks like a big sheet of baking foil. Jules commented that he is so impressed with its reflective heat properties that he fancies having a suit made from it – or at least that was until I pointed out that he would then look like Sir Jimmy Saville – to which he gave the compulsory ‘now then, now then’ in Jimmy’s style and had to agree that he has had better ideas.

Time just passes now and how easy a long haul flight would be as our minds are used to the moments of slow time. In fact a 24hr flight would be a doddle even without any form of entertainment. I’m sure the reality of time and urgency will return as we get closer to the finish and the will to get off the boat becomes close to unbearable.

We are now awaiting a bit of breeze from a low pressure headed our way - it means some true heinous southern ocean conditions – but it also means that we should eat up the 1700nm to the Horn a lot quicker.

Guy Salter - MCM

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PUMA LEG FIVE DAY 28 QFB: received 13.03.09 0413 GMT

...And now for a break in the action...

The Volvo Ocean Race went on hold for a couple of us, as we are in the process of essentially waiting for a low pressure system to come our way so we can jump on and rip to the horn. Sounds bizarre? Well, when you look at a weather map of this place, it is truly Bizzaro World.

If we continued south we would be blocked out of the Horn by a huge area of light winds. Essentially, for ourselves and Ericsson 4, who are positioned within 27 miles of each other, our quickest route by far, is to head northeast and punch through quite a strong low to get in the westerlies on the back side of it. Just when you thought this leg couldn't get any weirder.

The Dragons are going to be the huge recipients of this early Christmas present as they are about 300 miles behind us as we head to the Horn, but they will be the first to jump on this system and come ripping up to us and, as we see it, start the leg all over again with Ericsson 4 and ourselves. As for the other two, Telefónica Blue may not be so lucky as they are still one complete weather system behind but, at this point, I count nothing out. Ericsson 3, who has worked so hard for a nice little lead, is showing no signs of heading up for this front as of yet. Do they continue south and try to beat this low, or do they come back with us and jump on the train and burn up their hard earned lead? Very interesting.

Adding to the bizarre nature of this leg is the huge disparity from last night to tonight. Essentially last night sucked. Really cold, tons of water, hard reaching. Brutal conditions really. As morning came the wind started to back off and by midday we were reaching in bright sunshine with the mast head genoa on and airing out the boat. That trend continues tonight. Unreal.

On board we all really appreciated the sun and the lack of fire hosing today. Allowed for a bunch of chores and tidy-ups. Much needed rest and some new stories. Really and truly a nice break in the action.

We talked today about a total lack of marine life out here so far. Very few Albatross and only a handful of small sea birds. No fish or dolphins to speak of. Thank goodness no whales (they can hurt both whale and boat if they meet unexpectedly). My guess is that even the marine life have figured out that this is a pretty desolate place and there are better places on earth to hang out. Strange though when we passed through a similar latitude leaving Cape Town there were tons of Albatross. None on this side of the Southern Ocean.

Only 1700 miles to the Horn. Hopefully the race will start up again soon. We are officially ready to put this stage of the leg behind us.

Kenny Read - skipper

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ERICSSON 3 LEG FIVE DAY 27 QFB: received 12.03.09 1049 GMT

Pressure on

This is a tough leg, for sure. It is so complex. All aspects of yacht racing plays a big part and if one doesn't flow, it drags other parts down with it. It's about endurance, both physically and psychologically, about routines with food, sleep and hygiene and above all it's about the knowledge of sailing. How much you can push your crew and the boat. Also of course, skills in strategy, weather and navigation plays a huge part.

We have been doing well so far and are very happy to be where we are. At first we were not sure if we would manage to get to the start, but we put all the effort we could in making the boat ready to go, we sailed it shorthanded to China and started seven hours after the signal. And now, here we are working our guts out not to lose the lead we have been working so hard to get.

Our navigator’s choice to go north and catch on to a low pressure after the first scoring-gate paid off and today we passed the ice-gate a couple of hours before the second and third boat. Unfortunately being first to this gate doesn't give us any points and from here to the scoring-gate at Cape Horn it seems to be a bit of a restart.

We wished we would be able to hang on to the low a bit longer and catch a weather system the others would not be able to reach. Being in another system is probably the only way to get a secure lead, if you are in the same system you can quickly loose a couple of hundred miles. Depressing for the one in the lead but fun and exciting for the ones following the race and a hint of hope for the ones trying to make gains from the back of the fleet. Unfortunately we dropped out of the low and lost a lot of pace so the others have been able to make depressingly big gains on us.

Today we have been in what every sailor would call a "shit fight". We have constantly been sailing in less breeze than the others and right after the ice-gate we stopped completely for a while. Loosing up to 50 miles in one sched is not fun.

Here is when the psyche kicks in. We are all pretty bruised, battered and tired after 26 days of racing, 29 days if you count from Taiwan. We also have some flu going on, which can really bring the performance down. The more tired you get, the easier it is to make mistakes and the more mistakes you make the more you lose and the mood onboard gets bad.

So far we are doing good. We are hanging on to the "E3-spirit" and get up after each punch. But as the days get colder and our opponents get closer, everything will get harder.

This leg is a tough one, for sure.

Gustav Morin – MCM

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