Anton Paz/Telefonica Black/Volvo Ocean Race
By Cameron Kelleher
Our Ericsson 3 is like a wild horse in this stuff. She is twisting and turning and all the time trying to take control of herself ...
Friday, 22 May 2009, 13:30 GMT
The last 24 hours are what they all signed up for. Highs and lows, meteorological and mental. Seat-of-the-pants, heart-thumping, extreme sailing. This is hurtling downhill on a wild stallion disguised as a Volvo Open 70.
These are the conditions – 30+ knots downwind – where these boats, once described as skiffs on steroids, become beasts. And the task of taming them has been graphically captured by the embedded reporters on board – the Media Crew Members.
None more so than Gustav Morin. "Our Ericsson 3 is like a wild horse in this stuff,” he wrote. “She is twisting and turning and all the time trying to take control of herself. The crew and particularly the helmsman has to wrestle and keep her down every second.
"Standing at the wheel is no longer a matter of fingertip feeling and fine tuning with small soft movements. It's about having your feet apart and working hard to keep your balance, while turning like crazy between the waves.
"Sometimes you are not fast enough, or there just is no path to find so you can do nothing but let the bow dig down in the sea. A massive wall of water flushes the crew around the cockpit as a result. You better stay clipped on in these conditions. You might think you are in control and that you can bear any wave. Believe me, that's not the case."
For an insight into how the battle with “heinous” conditions affects emotional well-being, look no further than this email from Guy Salter, MCM on Ericsson 4.
"Most of the guys out here and definitely all onboard Ericsson 4 are very much in control of their emotions – you don’t want to get too excited by the highs and you don’t want to open yourself up to the lows,” he writes.
"This emotional guarding is often seen as arrogance or as if the boys are boring, when in reality it’s just an adaption for us to be able to push hard in extreme conditions which would see many tough people fold. The alarms ringing out in the brain are ignored in pursuit of performance.
"Only when the poo really hits the fan is the survival mode allowed to surface. You must keep a very cool head for this – another reason why the emotions are controlled – it’s a survival adaption.”
If Volvo newbie Ian Walker was not a convert prior to the last 24 hours, he is now. “This is what I had in mind when people talked to me about the Volvo Ocean race – hard, fast running in lots of wind,” the Green Dragon skipper admitted.
"It’s 3am, 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?,” he wondered.
"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.
"This was to happen two more times later in the night. 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 (McDonald) got washed clean off the steering wheel twice last night. This leg is setting up for a 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.”
Unsurprisingly, the accounts above came from boats which pointed their bows north where heavier breezes – and mountainous seas – were part of the terrain. As the cold front arrived, the trio took the brunt of it.
By the 13:30 GMT Position Report, there were two distinct trains of thought on tactics. North or south, and 108 miles of lateral separation. Ericsson 4, as covered in TEN ZULU this morning, had Green Dragon and Ericsson 3 for company. The rest of the pack was in the south.
On the leaderboard, Torben Grael’s men held a 13-mile buffer to Telefonica Blue. There were just six miles between Delta Lloyd (+19) and PUMA (+25), holding third and fourth places. Then came Green Dragon (+38) and Telefonica Black (+42), while the deficit to Ericsson 3 had ballooned to +50.
Telefonica Black, as predicted by Roger Nilson a few days’ ago, has had its wok cut out in running with the herd since the big breeze arrived. His worst fears have been realized. The crew has had to sit back and watch as rivals more suited to blasting downwind have passed them by.
"The dreaded downhill battles have started,” he wrote. “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. We had to watch PUMA passing us effortlessly, going more than a knot faster.
"The Blue boat embarrassed us the same way. Next to come from behind and pass us was Delta Lloyd. Our Achilles’ heel was hurting big time ... and no medicine available.”
The 24-hour numbers in the Data Centre have gone up a notch. Ericsson 4 tops the charts with a best run of 538 miles. Delta Lloyd (formerly ABN AMRO ONE), had earlier struck a blow for the older brigade by posting the second highest of 501 miles, but has since been overshadowed. Nonetheless, Black Betty's performance on this leg has turned heads.
For navigator Wouter Verbraak it has been wild and wet. Very wet. “Tons and tons of water are crashing over the bow as we accelerate down the waves and spear through the next one,” he said.
"My four-year-old son makes us go time and time again to the Volvo Ocean Race simulator (in port). 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 now already non-stop since yesterday afternoon, and we are looking at having strong wind conditions for another 24 hours at least.”
There are vital points up for grabs between Telefonica Blue and PUMA overall race leader, Ericsson 4’s nearest rivals. The Blue boat currently holds the upper hand. But Telefonica Blue skipper Bouwe Bekking, a six-race veteran, that in the Volvo, it’s never over till the buxom woman has burst into song.
"We are fighting like gladiators,” Bekking revealed. "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. The Atlantic can be a nasty place.”
On PUMA there was a whiff of unwelcome déjà vu (followed by a moment of mirth) for navigator Andrew Cape. The Australian was a member of the movistar crew member forced to abandon their boat on a treacherous transatlantic crossing in the 2005-06. On that occasion the boat had begun taking on water after sustaining keel damage.
This time round a broken rudder was the cause for concern on il mostro. According to skipper Ken Read, they were blasting along in 28 knots and in an awkward sea state at around 18:00 GMT last night when the shoe boat took a right kicking.
"All of a sudden we got a pretty nasty puff and we were off – 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,” he said.
It wasn't. The leeward rudder had sheared off.
"We finally heeled the boat to windward so the weather rudder would control the boat while we assessed the damage. Then we had to stop the boat and take down the sails and fit our emergency rudder to proceed to Ireland."
The repair work - now showing on .tv - is gripping stuff.
Cue the the light relief ... "So, here we are in the North Atlantic about half way to Ireland and there is a loud bang and it is full stop on board. Everyone is a bit p***** and out of the hatch comes Capey with his duffle bag over his shoulder and says … ‘last time I was here I heard the same noise and then it was time to get off’.
"That happened eerily close to our position when the rudder snapped off. Leave it to Capey to lighten up the situation. After a good laugh, the team went to work and now we are back sailing again. I guess it is all in a day’s work.”
The mishap cost them 20 miles to the leaders. Hard day at the office on PUMA.
Read Cameron Kelleher's blog at Funny Peculiar English
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Ericsson 3 media crew member Gustav Morin