Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 Day 3

Mike Pammenter looking at upcoming clouds onboard CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand during leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race

Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 Day 3

By Volvo Ocean Race media on 21 Feb21 February 2012Mike Pammenter looking at upcoming clouds onboard CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand during leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race © Hamish Hooper / CAMPER ETNZ / Volvo Ocean Race

Charles Caudrelier grinding with skipper Franck Cammas helming, onboard Groupama Sailing Team during leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race

© Yann Riou/Groupama Sailing Team/Volvo Ocean Race
Tom Addis and Ken Read mull over the new weather information in hopes of finding a way out of the northwest predicaments to come during leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race

Tom Addis and Ken Read mull over the new weather information in hopes of finding a way out of the northwest predicaments to come during leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race

CAMPER lead as trailing PUMA consider radical option

The skippers and navigators are facing a tactical minefield in the South China Sea after moderating breezes left behind a horribly confused sea state on the third day of the second stage of Leg 4.

Despite having thousands of miles of open water sailing ahead of them on the way to Auckland all six teams know that their exit from the South China Sea could prove decisive.

At 1300 UTC, as the fleet tracked north east towards a northerly crossing of the Luzon Strait close to Taiwan, the new leg leaders Chris Nicholson’s CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand held an almost six nautical mile (nm) advantage over previous front runners, Groupama sailing team skippered by Franck Cammas.

“We can see Groupama on the radar about 10 miles directly abeam of us,” said Nicholson today. “It’s snakes and ladders with them at the moment -- for one hour they will gain and the next hour we will gain.

“There’s a fair bit to consider, but for the moment we’ve got at least 14 hours on starboard tack trying to sail as fast as possible.”

CAMPER navigator Will Oxley confirmed the importance of the passage through the Luzon Strait between Taiwan and the Philippines: “There's not a lot happening in terms of moves right now,” he said. “All the boats are high-tailing to the north east.

“It's all about getting out of the South China Sea. Nervous times really. We're still in a good position - let's just hope the boat can do it for us.”

Groupama skipper Franck Cammas said his team were happy to be in the top two at this stage having configured their boat for downwind rather than upwind sailing on Leg 4.

“We got some reaching after the start, a couple of hours above 20 knots in a rough sea state,” Cammas said. “Once again we were pretty quick, then we started sailing upwind and we aren’t the most confortable doing that.

“But we are holding there. Because we didn’t prepare the boat for upwind on this leg we knew we would suffer for the first few days.

“CAMPER created a split. They are 10 miles to windward and it looks like the favourable side at the moment. We are following them closely.

“I hope we’ll get some reaching after Taiwan. It’s good now though, we are where we should be.”

Having pursued the most southerly route since leaving their home port, Mike Sanderson’s Team Sanya were today reaping the benefits of a progressive wind shift to the right. At 1300 UTC they had leapfrogged from fifth to third ahead of Ian Walker’s fourth placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Iker Martínez’s Team Telefónica in fifth.

Ken Read’s PUMA Ocean racing powered by BERG remained in sixth more than 45 nm off the lead.

Media Crew Member (MCM) Amory Ross said life on board had been brutal for the PUMA crew, who had tacked as much as five times in a 40 minute period as they tried in vain to reconnect with the fleet. “These are full on ocean tacks, so everyone is a little beaten up right now,” Ross said.

Having trailed the fleet since leaving last in the second stage staggered start Ross said PUMA were contemplating the radical option of sailing north around Taiwan -- a detour of some 400 nm – to avoid windless conditions in the Strait of Luzon.

“The problem is we just can’t seem to work out where we want to go just yet,” he said. “The weather systems are changing quickly right now and our previous route of passing between the southern tip of Taiwan and the northern islands of the Philippines is now looking like it is out of the playbook.

“That whole area is going to be glassed off at the time we were hoping to arrive. It’s just hard to believe we would have to go so far north when we ultimately want to go south.”

Telefónica navigator Andrew Cape said the fifth placed Spanish team were happy with their northerly position in relation to the fleet which he hoped would enable them to stay in the strongest winds on the approach to Luzon.

“Our position to the north is where we wanted to be,” Cape said. “There’s still a lot of miles to be done but we wanted to position ourselves to make sure we stayed in good breeze.

“It’s going to get quite tricky the next few days. There are still a lot of things to be sorted out yet but the next 24 hours will be more slogging away upwind still. There’s still a long way to go but we’re confident.”

On Abu Dhabi, skipper Ian Walker said the lumpy seas posed no real risk to the boats structurally but were making life difficult for the helmsmen particularly at overnight.

“The wind has gone hard right, lifting us up into quite a big head sea,” Walker said.

“It is uncomfortable rather than boat breaking but the helmsman needs to be alert for the odd wave with no back to it. Last night was very dark with no visible horizon which made it especially hard to helm accurately.”

Despite performance improvements after tuning adjustments and a new mainsail for this leg, Walker confessed to being concerned over Azzam’s pace compared to the leaders, but said tactics rather than raw speed would be key over the next few days.

“We seem to be going a bit better with our new mainsail and slightly different trim but still cannot quite match the pace of the leading three,” he said.

“The weather models are all over the place right now and the exit strategy through the Luzon Straits is far from clear.

“I suspect we may see some very different tactics leading to some opportunities over the next few days.”

Position Report at 13:02:00 UTC:

Pos	Team	DTL	Boat Speed	DTF
1	CMPR	0	12	4880.1
2	GPMA	5.7	11.5	4885.8
3	SNYA	11.6	11.8	4891.7
4	ADOR	13.8	11.7	4893.8
5	TELE	17.3	12	4897.4
6	PUMA	46.3	11.5	4926.4

www.VolvoOceanRace.com

Low-fat diet of breeze for Groupama 4 (from Groupama Sailing Team)

Whilst the whole fleet is on the same course tracking towards Taiwan against the monsoon system, the breeze is beginning to become light in the South China Sea and the waves are becoming flatter. This is good news for Franck Cammas and his crew, who are maintaining their second place behind the New Zealanders. The easterly wind is becoming lighter but with it comes a more complicated situation on the water…

“Due to the tropical storm, which rolled across the South China Sea a few days ahead of us, the sea is still pretty choppy. As such we're being forced to make headway with the wind and sea on the nose in a bid to reach the Luzon Strait. This Tuesday lunchtime (UTC), we're on starboard tack, making towards the South of Hong Kong, on a north-easterly heading. Camper has managed to break away a little to windward (ten miles) as there was a favourable wind shift for them and right now it's pretty good being out to the East. However, at a given point, it'll be necessary to put in a tack…” commented Franck Cammas at the noon videoconference this Tuesday.

A fractured monsoon

The situation in the South China Sea has changed dramatically in less than 48 hours. The tropical depression has ‘sucked' the monsoon across the southern section and turned the usual climate in this region somewhat on its head. A zone of calms is now reigning across the West and the North-West of the Philippines. As a result the boats are heading up to the North-East to get around this obstacle. There are no pronounced options to date and probably not before the fleet traverse the Luzon Strait. It is at this very point that the sailors are very likely to be skirting the Taiwanese coast on a beat in order to retain a bit of pressure in their sails…

“We've been on the same tack for more than 24 hours and there's no manœuvres to make. We're really heeled over but we've been able to rack up a fair amount of rest. The waves are between three and four metres high, but above all we are virtually sailing into the swell! The passage of the waves is brutal and is making life onboard very uncomfortable: conditions aren't easy for the boat either… The hardest moments were last night but it's going to gradually improve through until tomorrow. Right now the focus is on dealing with the oil rigs. There's one in front of us and unfortunately they're not very well charted. As regards the weather, the reality is nothing like the forecast but we're beginning to get used to that in the South China Sea. The wind strength is correct, but the rotations come out of the blue. Roll on the time when we enter the Pacific because the skies are overcast and sailing into the wind isn't very pleasant!” stressed the skipper of Groupama 4.

Camper beyond reproach…

The first 24 hours were essential for getting as far East as possible, so as to benefit from the big easterly wind shift, which encouraged Groupama 4 to put in her first change of tack (Tuesday lunchtime UTC). All the other skippers followed suit a few minutes after the French boat so since then it's been a drag race for the Volvo fleet, close-hauled sailing 45° to a breeze of around fifteen knots, which is tending to bend around as the hours go by. This Tuesday afternoon, the fleet is likely to pass the surprising island of Pratas (Dongsha Qundao) around which the area is rife with oil prospecting. The position Franck Cammas and his men find themselves currently is proving favourable as Groupama 4 is at the front of the group, which is stretching away to the detriment of the latecomers who've had to tack twice (Telefonica) or more (Puma) to stay in the breeze that is falling away as they approach Hong Kong.

“Puma wasn't favoured by her delayed start of more than half an hour in Sanya. We know that the wind is set to drop away across the whole of the race zone and each time, their crew has suffered the wind rotations at the same time as us, which is penalising them at the start of this race. However, it's only our second day at sea! There is still a long way to go. At the start, the minute the wind enabled us to sail with sheets eased, we saw once again that we were very quick since we were able to overhaul Camper just as the wind shifted. Close-hauled we're slightly less at ease, especially as we haven't set Groupama 4 up for this point of sail, but for now, we're maintaining our rank. We're likely to latch onto more wind on the beam after Taiwan…”

At noon this Tuesday, the leaders had only covered 390 miles on their journey towards the Luzon Strait and there are still nearly 300 to go before they can round the southern tip of the ex-Formosa. The conditions on the water will be less rough but a lot more complicated because the breeze will oscillate several times over the coming hours with the presence of a large cloud mass, which is in the process of evaporating. There is likely to be some slight repositioning ahead then and it's during this ballet of tack changes that some significant gaps could open out, particularly between the two leaders (Camper and Groupama 4) and the backrunner (Puma), which is already sailing in a different system than her rivals.

Blog from the Seas (by Amory Ross, MCM, PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG)

“I reckon we could race around the world the opposite way, the upwind way – the ‘wrong way’ – and have more downwind sailing than we’ve had.” – Tony Mutter

There’s a reason they call upwind sailing “beating” – it’s what we take while doing it. These boats are just not made to sail this way. But we insist on doing it, like all the time. We hoped a southerly run from China to New Zealand would mean some spinnaker work, but it has started with anything but. We have to sail north to get south, and it means a few more days of uncomfortable upwind living aimed away from the mark.

Waves seem to come from all directions and there’s nothing to do but make sure you’re hanging on because you never see half of them. A Volvo 70 is designed to sail downwind, to reach at high speeds; shaped like a surfboard, our “flat-bottomed girl” aches with each flight and cries with each crash. As the breeze lightens further there’s talk of canting the keel to leeward to induce heel and help avoid the belly flops that make us cringe.

Taiwain – our first waypoint – sits about 400 miles to our northeast and between us lies more of the waves we’ve come to hate, leftover swell from the monsoon, a few tacks, adverse current, and the gradually easing winds. Not exactly a pleasant trip so far, but well within early expectations.

We still own the northwest and the consensus remains that the further north you are the quicker you reach the new pressure. Our problem remains however, that the further east you are, the more you’re lifted. So we have to find that compromise: how do we get east without sacrificing our north? There are some big decisions to be made over the next few days.

- Amory