10,000 Mile Count Down

Since starting leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race in Qingdao last Saturday, the leaders of the pack, Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) and PUMA (Ken Read/USA) have covered over 2,000 nautical miles and last night the pair reached the 10,000 nm distance to finish marker. 

The two front-markers are leading the fleet midway between the Islands of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International dateline and still north of the equator. 

Navigator of Ericsson 4, Jules Salter/GBR reckons his team are about 100 nm north of the first light and fickle Doldrum belt on this leg.  Jules says, “As much information as possible is always good to base your decisions on, but so often, with these bubbling, light wind, cloudy weather situations, a large amount is good luck.” 

Due to a major satellite reorganisation and upgrade, weather and other information is limited for a short period on this leg.  Ever resourceful and, much to the amusement of the crew onboard Ericsson 4, Salter is using an old school weather fax. 

“With our T&T radio set up, we can get weather maps from the sky,” he says.  “Reception is not digital, but there is a pleasure in receiving a slightly blurred weather map from the airwaves as you hear the tone come in over the SSB radio. Whether it will help us to maintain our slender lead through the first Doldum area is a moot point,” he says, adding that it is good to revisit old technology for a while.   “We become too complacent on so much new technology which we, especially me, do not understand.”  

But the ‘fun’ will be short lived as the weather fax will be put away in a few hours as Inmarsat’s Fleet 33, the backup system to Inmarsat Fleet Broadband, becomes operational again. Although considerably slower than Fleet Broadband - dial up speed compared with Fleet Broadband, which debuts on this event and offers HD TV to the race - the system is able to provide most of what the navigators need to pick their way through the doldrums.  The full system will be back in operation in three days from now.

Bouwe Bekking/NED, skipper of ‘come back’ boat Telefónica Blue, is pragmatic about the situation, although his navigator Tom Addis is ‘agitated’ as Bekking puts it.  “It’s one of these things that you learn over the years.  Do not get too upset about things you do not have control over, especially if it is the same for all the other boats,” Bekking said.

With 9,842 nm to go to the finish, Ericsson 4 leads PUMA by 39 nm, a loss for PUMA of over 37 nm in the last 24 hours.  Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) has also slipped back another 35 nm and now has a deficit of 95 miles.  Telefónica Blue slipped past Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) yesterday, and leads her by 13nm, although the Dragons have chosen a more easterly route. 

Both boats sailed without mainsails for a short period overnight; Telefónica Blue slowed the to make good a problem with the propeller box, while Green Dragon also spent an hour with no mainsail while the crew repaired the end of one of the batten sockets.    With a big split across the fleet, the danger now for the teams will come when the boats ahead reach new weather systems.

Ian Walker, however, is still happy with his easterly position.  “I am sure the others will have to work this way – it seems to have stopped the loss of miles for a while,” he said.

Leg Five Day 8: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions