Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 Day 18

PUMA drop to third as Groupama weigh up New Zealand approach

PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG are today fighting to hold on to third position after a series of windless rain clouds slowed Ken Read’s team dramatically over the past 24 hours allowing Iker Martínez’s Team Telefónica to squeeze into second place.

At 1300 UTC PUMA had dropped 30 nautical miles on leaders Groupama in three hours and fallen behind Telefónica by 15 nm. CAMPER also closed in on PUMA, trailing just 48 nm in their wake.

While PUMA struggled Franck Cammas’ Groupama sailing team appeared unable to put a foot wrong and at 1300 UTC they had extended their lead to 150 nm.

Having been stymied twice yesterday by massive rain clouds that reduced the wind and PUMA’s boat speed to almost zero at around 1000 UTC, yet another huge cloud dealt Read’s crew a third body blow.

“We just ran into another big cloud with no wind so we’re parked up,” said PUMA helmsman Kelvin Harrap. “It’s not great. We’ve been on the eastern side of the fleet and we’ve picked up more clouds so it hasn’t been very favorable for us.

“We are trying to pass them the best we can using the radar and sailing around the ones we see. Right now we’re in the middle of a bad one, which seems to like us more than any of the others.”

Harrap said the PUMA crew was unsure why they had suffered more than the rest of the fleet but were hoping for better luck as they tried to hold off Chris Nicholson’s fourth place CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand.

“Right now we are just trying to keep the boat moving and sail towards some clear sky,” he said. “We are excepting some fresh upwind sailing in the next few days and we are trying to decide how to position ourselves in relation to Telefónica and CAMPER.

“We will see what happens in the next 24 hours and how it’s going to pan out.”

Meanwhile, fifth placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing had also been caught out, spending a day fighting to escape a windless zone in the lee of New Caledonia despite having stayed well away to avoid just such a problem.

“I wouldn’t have felt so hard done by if we hadn’t had a conservative strategy of staying on Groupama and PUMA’s line 100 miles offshore of the island,” Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker said. “Groupama and PUMA sailed on by without missing a beat and we lost 100 miles at least.”

Walker said the costly park-up was all the more painful because it had come straight after Abu Dhabi had lost touch with the top three boats when they had to detour around the top of the Solomon Islands.

However, with more than 1,000 nautical miles to go to Auckland Walker said the Abu Dhabi crew was now determined to hold off Team Sanya and try to catch fourth placed CAMPER before the end of the leg.

“There is no time for feeling sorry for ourselves, we have a race on with Sanya, we have to try and still catch CAMPER and we have a race on to be ready for the next leg,” he said.

“The wind is building, we are nearly pointing at Auckland. Life isn’t too bad and we’ll try and get there for the weekend.”

At 1300 UTC Abu Dhabi remained in fifth, 63 nm ahead of sixth placed Team Sanya and 119 nm behind CAMPER in fourth.

Leg leaders Groupama had 696 nm to go to Auckland and are expected to arrive between 0600 and 1200 UTC on March 10.

Position Report at 13:01:00 UTC:

www.VolvoOceanRace.com

The major turning point (from Groupama Sailing Team)

The depression, which has settled into position across the direct route to Auckland, is forcing the fleet to go around the resulting zone of calms. Groupama 4 has managed to hold onto her lead ahead of the Americans and Spanish, but the last 500 miles are likely to be punctuated by a steady South-East to easterly headwind, which is set to ease as they close on New Zealand. As such the fleet is likely to bunch up…

“Obviously being in the lead of this leg is a morale boost, but there's no motorway to the finish. We're going to have to deal with a zone of light airs. This transition zone casts some doubt over the last 400 miles to Cape Reinga to the North of New Zealand, as we still don't know if we're going to have light airs and upwind conditions at the finish. There will then be a second tricky zone as we drop down towards Auckland. That could be an opportunity for our pursuers to make up the lost ground on us with the arrival of a front from behind, whilst we'll be in light airs. As such nothing is set in stone, even with a lead of over a hundred miles”, explained Franck Cammas during the noon videoconference on Tuesday.

A question of timing

Since they set a course out to the West of New Caledonia, Franck Cammas and his men have been able to hold onto their extra buffer as regards the Americans, who are now behind the Spanish. It would seem that Ken Read got a little too close to the centre of the low and that Puma has fallen into a zone of light breezes, whilst Telefonica is hurtling along at over 18 knots with the wind on the beam! With Camper in the wake of the Spanish, the Americans are on the point of being seriously knocked back in terms of miles, and their position some 50 miles further East, no longer appears advantageous for the end of the leg. Indeed Ian Walker has spotted the danger and Abu Dhabi has side-stepped this zone and are instead covering the Chinese boat, which is becoming a threat…

The route to Auckland is still full of pitfalls, with one depression leaving Australia to slip across the Southern Ocean and another disturbance offshore of the northern tip of New Zealand, which doesn't appear too pronounced. Between the two the breeze is fairly shifty both in terms of strength and direction. As such Groupama 4 has continued heading due South, whilst her rivals have no other choice than to adopt the same track. In this way, the moment when the decision is taken to hang a big left towards New Zealand is going to very important. The French boat will be the first to skim past the centre of the low, where the breeze will struggle to reach five knots, before they can latch onto an easterly breeze of around fifteen knots.

“Though there are no major options to be had for anyone, the problem stems from the fact that the boats aren't in the same timing in relation to this depression: by being in front, we may be led to pass through a windless zone waiting for the breeze to return behind us… bringing the other boats with it! In the current circumstances, given that the route to the finish has narrowed down the options, there's not a lot we can do.”

Final beat

This Wednesday evening, Groupama 4's lead is likely to shrink then, as has been the case since this morning, where they lost ten miles in six hours. Indeed Franck Cammas and his crew are now skirting along the edge of the disturbed system, in what is a south-easterly air flow of less than ten knots, whilst the Spanish are still making headway with over fifteen knots of easterly breeze. However this situation is set to be fleeting because, once they're past 31° South, which will be around daybreak in the Antipodes, the French boat will have passed below the depression, at which point she'll latch back onto a new easterly breeze of at least 18 knots. As such the gaps between the fleet will concertina as the rest of the fleet will also have to deal with this light patch about half a day later.

It is only once they pass this critical latitude that Groupama 4 will be able to begin to bend her course round towards Cape Reinga, less than 200 miles from the finish. In fact, it's highly likely that it will be impossible to make landfall on the Kiwi coast without first putting in some tacks to get around the northern headland. After that the easterly wind will ease from Friday: the zone of high pressure centred over the South of North Island, will be replaced by a barometric marshland over Auckland! The breeze will radically decrease as Franck Cammas and his men beat their way along the coast to close on the Hauraki Gulf. If things pan out as they should, it will be no picnic for their pursuers either if they have a deficit of at least a hundred miles on passing Cape Reinga. However, if they're any closer than that, there could very well be a turnaround!

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

“It’s less a reflection on them than it is on us. It wasn’t that they [Telefónica and CAMPER] had a great night, it’s that we had a tough one.” – Tom Addis

LOCATION: 250 miles W of the Isle of Pines
BOATSPEED: 16.6 KTS
WINDSPEED: 13.7 KTS
HEADING: 164-degrees
SAILS: Big Jib, staysail, full main
DISTANCE TO FINISH: 1000 MILES

Now we’re getting to the tough part of this race. I’m not talking about 35 knot headwinds, 6-meter swells, or soaking wet living conditions. I’m not talking about sleepless days, exhaustive malnutrition, sunburn or frostbite. I’m talking about getting close to a finish line, getting within 1000 miles of a destination you’ve been dreaming about for weeks. It puts everything else to shame.

There’s something about the final few days of a leg that slow time down the way no other Volvo Ocean Race cruelty can. And in some instances such as this one, it can prove painfully difficult. Nobody would have predicted such a long and arduous road north to get south, and to add insult to injury – we left Sanya a day late. So instead of arriving tomorrow, the originally targeted Auckland arrival, we’re looking at another three days at sea and an expected ETA sometime on the 11th of March (our first day of Leg 5 Southern Ocean practice is scheduled for the 14th).

Part of what makes this race so appealing is the travel. But circling the globe with your family, friends, and teammates means little if you don’t have the time to enjoy it with them. And two days “off” in New Zealand is not exactly what my parents had in mind when they happily organized a trip to see a place that nobody in our family has ever had the opportunity to go. Everyone has a story like that... Brad, who lives in New Zealand, doesn’t think he’ll have enough time to go home because he – like others – will be working from the shore base to fix what needs fixing.

It’s the second time it’s happened to us after essentially missing the Cape Town stopover, and it makes times like these, with 1,000 miles to go, that much harder. Everyone wants to be there now, everyone wants to drink the local beer, eat the local eats, sing the local songs, and be able to leave with a smile and wave and say “thank you Auckland.”

Even though we find ourselves in the midst of an extremely close race—a race for a podium position—it’s the human elements that can still reign supreme. That’s a good sign...we love what we do, but it’s not always everything to everyone. Auckland, thanks for your patience - we’ll see you soon!

- Amory