Sport-heute: Sailing - THE PIRATE WAYPOINT

15. Dezember 2008, 17:54

THE PIRATE WAYPOINT

The eight-strong Volvo Ocean Race fleet, on leg three from Cochin to Singapore, is now racing south of a line set between two waypoints south of Sri Lanka, put in place by race organisers to keep the fleet south of the coast and the possible intrusion by pirates. The turn to the north, up into the Bay of Bengal cannot be made until the round the second waypoint is passed, about 40 nautical miles head of the race leader, Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA).

cochin-singapore (mk) Once round the waypoint, the fleet will then face a 1000
nm beat towards Sumatra and the scoring gate set off the entrance to the Malacca Straits. Wouter Verbraak, Team Russia's Dutch navigator puts the upwind slog into perspective when he explains, 'it is as far as Miami to New York, slightly shorter than Sydney to Auckland, or from Holland to the very most southern tip of Italy. Wow, that is more than a two-day drive.'

According to Verbraak, it is clear that there is consistently more wind in the Bay of Bengal and the decision as to when to peel off north will be a crucial one. 'Go further east to get that better right hand shift, or go earlier to get to the stronger wind first,' Verbraak deliberates. Either way, it will be all to play for once the fleet gets clear of the second Sri Lankan waypoint.

Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) currently in third place, nearly found themselves the wrong side of the waypoint, washed down on it by 2.5 knots of current, which, Bekking says gave navigator Simon Fisher a few grey hairs!

At 1300 GMT, the fleet was sailing upwind with tightly-sheeted Code Zero sails. Bekking said that PUMA (Ken Read/USA) was sailing the best, Ericsson 4 - second best, and his own boat, Telefónica Blue, the worst. 'It's just a matter of being patient and waiting for the conditions to change,' he said. The leading pack has nearly three knots of current against them, which doesn't help their progress, but at least there is breeze and the boats are still making miles in the right direction.

Overnight, the order changed again. Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) slipped into the lead, followed by PUMA (Ken Read/USA). Telefónica Blue was relegated to third place and is being hounded by Telefónica Black (Fernando EchÃ¡varri/ESP). Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) has gone from second to fifth place and is just five miles ahead of Andreas Hanakamp/AUT and Team Russia who move up a place, swapping with Ericsson 3 (Anders Lewander/SWE) who is still struggling in the light conditions. Roberto Bermudez/ESP and Delta Lloyd continue to bring up the rear, but are now 63 nm behind, losing 30 miles since 1000 GMT yesterday.

Leg Three Day Three: 1000 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)

Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTF 1475
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +1
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +2
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando EchÃ¡varri/ESP) +9
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +14
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +19
Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) +22
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +63

**********************************************************

ERICSSON 4 LEG THREE DAY 3 QFB: received 15.12.08 1500 GMT

A rather quiet and uneventful day today. We are experiencing very light breezes as we slowly sail across the southern coast of Sri Lanka. At the moment, we are sitting in first place with both Telefónica Blue and Puma only a couple of miles to leeward. While we have generally been able to maintain a reasonable boatspeed though the water, adverse currents of up to 3 knots are really putting a halt to the distance we are covering over the ground.

Life onboard is back to the usual routine. Temperatures are warm and humid. Unfortunately, for me, these factors are combining perfectly to create a nice, sweaty rash (trench crutch) in a region I would rather prefer it wasn't! Everyone is in high spirits and pleased to be pushing in the front pack of the fleet.

Hopefully wind conditions will improve so as to ensure that we won't be celebrating Christmas day aboard the good ship Ericsson 4.

That's it for now,

Ryan Godfrey

Leserkommentare (0) »

Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race High concentration on board while Jordi Calafat shows a possible wind shift would affect the position within the rest of the fleet

Sergey Bogdanov/Team Russia/Volvo Ocean Race The fleet of Volvo Open 70's, at the start of leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race