Volvo Ocean Race - Leg 7 Day 7
by Volvo Ocean Race media 22 May 2009 15:40 BST
PUMA breaks rudder as Volvo fleet puts the hammer down
Ericsson 4 is back in her familiar position, leading the fleet by 13 nm as they scream towards Galway. But, the last 24 hours have not been without incident. The red sky yesterday morning heralded a warning, and, as the wind increased as forecast late yesterday afternoon, PUMA was in trouble, having just sailed into the lead.
Around 1800 GMT in an awkward sea state, the black cat broached. There was a bang and the boat was on her side, the sails flapping wildly. The crew could do nothing to get her to back down away from the wind and it was clear that the leeward rudder had snapped off.
“We quickly got the boat going downwind again by using the sails to steer, and finally heeled the boat to windward so the weather rudder would control the boat while we assessed the damage,” explained skipper Ken Read. “Then, we had to literally stop the boat and take down the sails to fit our emergency rudder,” he said. “We’ll race as best we can. Our emergency rudder system is pretty slick. Time will tell if we have more rudder problems. We are all certainly a bit concerned right now,” he added.
The dreaded downwind battle has also brought disappointment for the crew of Telefónica Black, who led the fleet for part of this 2,550 nm leg. “We got into harder running conditions last night and had to accept that our boat speed was not matching the others,” wrote a despondent navigator, Roger Nilson.
Ericsson 4 slipped effortlessly past and then to add to their humiliation, the Telefónica Black crew could only watch as PUMA flew past, sailing more than a knot faster and a few degrees lower and, much to the annoyance of the Black boat’s crew, flying her biggest masthead gennaker in 25 knots of cold air. Telefónica Black had been nose diving and had become unmanageable with the large masthead gennaker in the building breeze, and consequently, the crew was only able to fly a furling fractional gennaker.
“The Blue boat embarrassed us the same way as PUMA, but it was a bit more painful with PUMA as she was so close when she passed us – just a few hundred metres away,” said Nilson.
To make matters worse, flying up behind was Delta Lloyd. “She was a dot on the horizon to the south, and a few hours later, she had disappeared straight in front of us. She totally out-sailed us with 1.5 knots more speed and going as much as five degrees lower. What to do?” questioned Nilson. Their Achilles heel was hurting and there was no medicine. They are now in sixth place.
Wouter Verbraak, the Dutch navigator onboard third-placed Delta Lloyd described the conditions as wild. “Tons and tons of water are crashing over the bow as we accelerate down the waves and spear through the next one.”
Throughout the night, Delta Lloyd opted for the relatively ‘safe’ set up of a fractional code zero headsail and a reefed mainsail, but when daylight came, it became clear that several boats in the fleet were putting the hammer down again.
The Delta Lloyd crew faced a dilemma. Would they be able to handle the boat with the A6 fractional spinnaker and be faster and lower, or was the sea state still too bad? Would they be better to continue with their current set up? Verbraak said they would be patient and wait to see how the sea state developed, but it is hard to hold back when the fleet is putting the throttle down. “Pitch-poling [a scary wipe-out when the boat does a cartwheel] is expensive…,” noted Verbraak.
Last night was an expensive time in terms of miles lost for the Green Dragon Team who, at 3am and on the edge of control in winds gusting to 42 knots, lost all their electronic instruments. “What do you do next?” asked skipper Ian Walker. Was this a question that he expected answering by gaming community?
Walker knew the answer: “You pray the helmsman somehow manages to keep steering that fine line between success and failure. The reality is that he will only succeed for a short while before a wave or gust catches him out, and sure enough, that’s what happened.”
All hands were called to shorten sail. Down below was a mass of sleepy bodies trying to get dressed as the boat lay on her side. On deck, the crew fought to regain control, while navigator Ian Moore went below to set about fixing the electrical problem. “Why do these things always happen at night and in the biggest gust of the day?” asked Ian Walker.
Walker confirmed that minutes later the team was up and running again with no damage to the boat or sails. This happened twice more during the night and contributed to a loss of miles after good gains before nightfall. The team is now in fifth place, 38 miles behind Ericsson 4.
Even this morning, Walker was ankle-deep in water as he sat typing his daily report to the race office and nobody was on deck without being harnessed to the boat. “You need little reminder of why, as time and time again, people are washed down the decks. On deck is no fun at night, but has turned into fantastic sailing by day,” Walker said.
The fleet maybe divided by 108 nm north to south, but on the leaderboard, the differences are minimal and only 50 nm separate Ericsson 4 in first place and Ericsson 3 in last place. Twenty-four hour runs are approaching the 550 mark. Ericsson 4 is currently logging 538 in the last 24-hour period.
“This leg is setting up for an amazingly close finish into Galway, but wherever we finish, the memory of this leg will live with me. What we do in these boats is quite extraordinary,” Green Dragon’s skipper said.
Leg Seven Day 7: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
1. Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTL 702 nm
2. Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +13
3. Delta Lloyd NED (Roberto Bermúdez/ESP) +19
4. PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +25
5. Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +38
6. Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) + 42
7. Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) +50
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS
Positions are updated every three hours on www.volvooceanrace.org
ERICSSON 4 LEG SEVEN DAY 7 QFB: received 22.05.09 1209 GMT
It’s nearly impossible to do anything down below - so violent are the movements onboard today that I can’t get any video onto my computer.
The sound is unbelievable - it’s not the classic wind whistling in the rigging, but more the yacht whistling through the air. The sound is a mix between the turbo charge of an engine and the sound of a half filled bottle as you blow over it - only louder.
The problem with the sound is that it usually ends in a large bang as we land on the water once again before skipping aggressively on our way. Thirty knots and above is common place on the scoreboard, but we are often decelerating by 10% or more in the next wave. Once again my arms look like I have had a week on the rack as they have been stretched from hanging on! Typing is very difficult - the keys come up to my fingers, a complete opposite to normal and this short paragraph has taken nearly 30mins to write - I think I am running at 10 swears spoken per word written and have involuntary head butted the screen three times as we nose dive.
Every now and again the roar of a jet engine can be heard only this is the sound of cavitation around the rudders as we struggle to keep the boat on her feet. This boat is a weapon - a weapon of mass destruction and I’m sure in years to come you will need a whole host of certificates to sail it. It’s a credit to its designers and builders as it flies and keeps going - giving the helmsmen the odd second or two of grace to correct any minor errors - although these are rare with our bunch of legends.
As I was filming forward yesterday I took quite a pounding - again in true accident prone Frank Spencer fashion I got wrapped around the shrouds... Luckily my left ' particular' took the impact - I say luckily, when I finally got my breath back the boys were still rolling around laughing. I guess it was like watching the slam section of a skateboard movie where the hand rail always wins!
I have stopped talking like the late great Alan Ball now but I am a bit bruised so I don’t think I will be hitting the beaches of Galway in my 'man-kini' this year. Sorry ladies
Guy Salter - MCM
TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG SEVEN DAY 7 QFB: received 22.05.09 1137 GMT
We are fighting like gladiators, but we can’t get more speed out of our puppy. We feel we made improvements, but we are still missing that little of bit of pace which is needed to stay up front.
Most of the time we have been running with six guys on deck, so everybody gets less sleep, if you can sleep at all when you are off watch. The boat is shaking violently, and sometimes you nearly get launched out of your bunk, when we stick our nose in a wave in front. From 25 knots to 12 knots in matter of seconds, the forces on the hull and the gear are enormous, but no gear damage.
I just remind the guys as well to enjoy the ride, as it still very fast. The Atlantic shows once again, it can be a nasty place where weather forecasts change quickly. The northwest wind brings us heavy squalls and the temperature drops considerable, we even had hail. But downstairs it is cosy, warm, dry sleeping bags and even the foul weather gear dries partly out as the heater is running full noise. Still looks like we will arrive somewhere on Sunday, which makes it still a relatively quick trip.
Bouwe Bekking - skipper
DELTA LLOYD LEG SEVEN DAY 7 QFB: received 22.05.09 0759 GMT
Fast and safe?
I sat down to write that we are fast and safe, but thinking of it, it is hard to call this sailing safe when we are, most of the time, sailing right on the edge in 30-35 knots of breeze. A better description is wild. Tons and tons of water are crashing over the bow as we accelerating down the waves and spear through the next one.
My four year old son makes us go time and time again to the Volvo Ocean Race simulator. A compilation of some of the most spectacular sailing in the last Volvo Ocean Race. Afterwards people ask me: ‘is it really like that?’ Yes, it is like that and worse, as where the simulator stops after a few minutes, the pounding here is already non-stop since yesterday afternoon, and we are looking at having strong wind conditions for another 24 hours at least.
Through the night we have been sailing with the fractional code zero and a reefed mainsail. This set-up is relatively safe, and the best way to get through the night. Now, with daybreak here, we can see from the position reports that several boats are putting the hammer down again. The big question is will we be able to handle the A6 fractional spinnaker and be faster and lower? Or is the sea state still too bad and is it better to continue with the current set-up?
Still a long way to go to Galway and the first priority is to get there with the boat in one piece. It is hard to hold back when the fleet is putting the throttle down, but we have to be patient I guess and see how the sea state develops. Pitch poling is expensive….
Wouter Verbraak - navigator
PUMA LEG SEVEN DAY 6 QFB: received 21.05.09 2224 GMT
Why can't we catch a break! We get ourselves into first and sail the boat hard only for a catastrophe to rear its ugly head again. This time in the form of our rudder - or lack thereof!
Sailing on starboard tack at about 1800 GMT we had about 28 knots of wind and were going pretty quick with an A-zero and full mainsail. The sea state was quite awkward. A ton of water was coming over the deck with each wave but it was no big deal. All of a sudden we got a pretty nasty puff and we were off. We were a bit on the edge and did a small spin out. I heard a bang at the back of the boat and hoped like hell that it was the runner block hitting the boom or something. It wasn't.
When the boat sat on its side with the sails flopping and there was nothing that we could do to get it back down away from the wind, it was clear that the leeward rudder had snapped off. We quickly got the boat going downwind again by using the sails to steer, and finally heeled the boat to windward so the weather rudder would control the boat while we assessed damage. Then we had to literally stop the boat and take down the sails and fit our emergency rudder to proceed to Ireland. We'll race as best we can. Our emergency rudder system is pretty slick. Time will tell if we have more rudder problems. We are all certainly a bit concerned right now.
However, we can leave it to Capey [Andrew Cape, AUS] to lighten up the situation and get everybody back into the swing of things…. Here we are in the North Atlantic about halfway to Ireland and there is a loud bang and it is full stop onboard. Everyone is a bit pissed off. Capey comes out of the hatch with his duffel bag over his shoulder, and says ‘last time I was here I heard the same noise and then it was time to get off’. He was talking about when the keel system broke on movistar in the last race and they sadly had to abandon ship. Eventually the boat was lost. It happened eerily close to our position here tonight when the rudder snapped off.
After a good laugh, the team onboard went to work and now we are back sailing again. I guess it is all in a day’s work. I just hate going to work on days like this.
Kenny Read - skipper
GREEN DRAGON LEG SEVEN DAY 7 QFB: received 22.05.09 1038 GMT
It’s 3 am pitch black and you are on the edge of control when the wind gusts to 42 knots and all the electronic instruments go out. What do you do next?
The answer is you pray the helmsman somehow manages to keep steering that fine line between success and failure. The reality is that he will only succeed for a short while before a wave or gust catches him out and sure enough that's what happened.
With 'all hands' being called to shorten sail, down below was a mass of sleepy bodies trying to get dressed as the boat lay on its side sails flogging. On deck they fought to regain control and furl up one of the sails and Ian Moore went about fixing the electrical problem. Why do these things always happen at night and in the biggest gust of the day?
Minutes later we were back up and running again, with no damage thankfully to boat or sails. This was to happen two more times later in the night and contributed to a loss of some miles after good gains before nightfall. The boat is awash above and below decks.
As I type this in the nav station I am ankle deep in water. Our bunk is soaked and so are many others. Fortunately it doesn't matter. We have 750 miles to Galway and it doesn't matter if we live in our kit soaking wet for 36 hours. Nobody goes on deck without being harnessed to the boat and you need little reminder of why as time and time again people are washed down the decks. Neal got washed clean off the steering wheel twice last night alone. On deck is no fun at night but has turned into fantastic sailing by day.
This leg is setting up for an amazingly close finish into Galway, but wherever we finish the memory of this leg will live with me. What we do in these boats is quite extraordinary.
Ian Walker - skipper
TELEFÓNICA BLACK LEG SEVEN DAY 7 QFB: received 22.05.09 0335 GMT
The last 24 hours have been very different from the days before. The dreaded downhill battle has started. We got into harder running last night and had to accept that our boat speed was not matching the others. Ericsson 4 moved away from us fast on the radar screen and at 10.5 nm we lost her.
In the morning we found our selves on starboard gybe, with two boats in sight. Telefónica Blue behind on our port quarter and PUMA behind us on our starboard side. We had our A7 up, a furling fractional gennaker as we could not handle the Black boat with the large masthead gennaker in the building breeze. She was just nose diving too much.
Soon we realised that both the Blue boat and PUMA were considerable faster than us. We had to watch PUMA passing us effortless, going more than a knot faster and a few degrees lower, under her biggest masthead gennaker in 27 knots of cold air.
The Blue boat embarrassed us the same way as PUMA, but it was more painful with PUMA as she was so close when she passed us...! Just a few hundred meters away.
Next to come from behind and pass us was Delta Lloyd. She was a dot on the horizon to the south and a few hours later she disappeared straight in front of us! Very frustrating, to say the least.. Delta totally out sailed us with 1.5 knots more speed and going as much as five degrees lower...What to do...?
Our Achilles heel was hurting big time....and no medicine available. The four of us PUMA, Blue, Black and Delta Lloyd chose the option to hang on to the SSW’ly breeze east of the front, on starboard gybe, rather than going north on port and crossing the front as soon as possible as Ericsson 4, Green Dragon and Ericsson 3 did.
In our case, we chose going east first as the pre-frontal breeze was more left than predicted. At 1800 GMT the front had caught us up and the breeze swung around fast from SSW to west and we promptly gybed to port. As it looks right now, my feeling is that the northern route will win...in two days we will know..
Yours
Roger Nilson - navigator
ERICSSON 3 LEG SEVEN DAY 7 QFB: received 22.05.09 1342 GMT
Squall night
It has been a crazy night. It was full on action before darkness with 30 to 35 knots of wind and really messy sea state which throws the boat up to speeds over 30 knots and the next seconds stops it with another massive wave.
When darkness fell we took the second reef in and that was lucky, a couple of hours later we had a few squalls coming in and pushing the gusts up to almost 50 knots.
The guys did an amazing job keeping the boat upright and in one piece. When these conditions go on for a while, the race is a lot about endurance. Being on deck demands full concentration at all times, one second of bad helming can result in a bad broach. Just at this moment we are hoisting a bigger sail to be able to sail a bit lower without loosing speed. But the broach will be even closer.
"Sometimes there is just nothing you can do to prevent the broach. You nosedive so badly that the rudders lose their effect and when the wave starts to turn the bow you can't fight back", says Magnus Olsson.
But we need to keep this big sail up and push harder than our opponents to gain back from our loss with the keel and daggerboard issues.
"We are sailing at the same speed as with the smaller sail, but the 10 degree lower course makes a difference in 60 miles towards the finish if you count on a distance of 400 miles", says navigator Aksel Magdahl.
The water temperature has been changing from 5 to 20 degrees the last couple of days and we are now back in the cold. The water is about 10 degrees and you have to keep moving not to freeze. You can also notice that the wind is a lot more powerful now when the temperature is lower and a bit more stable. The guys are exhausted when they come of watch.
Down below there is also a bit of an endurance race going on. For me as a media crew member, the never-ending story of bailing out water is full on and making food takes a lot more time and energy than in the light. I kind of like the food part though, I see it as a challenge every time I go up to the galley and get thrown around when the boat is smashing into the waves and bashes hard in the landings.
Working with computers and cameras is less amusing since they tend to break down in bad conditions. Water is dripping from all kinds of places and you have to be very careful, which is easier said than done since I struggle just to sit upright with the computer in my lap. One second the boat is diving so I almost fall forward, next second we are broaching and the third time we are heeling heavily to windward. It is just a big mess.
I was planning to do some filming which would require one of the guys to help me hold the camera. But I realise that is not going to happen. Sailing, eating and sleeping are the only things of importance for them now.
Gustav Morin - MCM