Convergence

Bouwe Bekking and Andrew Cape smelling of roses in the Volvo Ocean Race

Despite some question marks over it on Friday, the 'buffalo girls' route has worked in particular for Team Brunel (less so for Team SCA) as the VO65s converge with the rest of the fleet to the southeast of the Northern Mariana Islands, now just over half way south to the Solomon Islands turning mark on this fourth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Over the weekend while the southerly group, where Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has been leading the charge, has been on a course of around 115° making around 16 knots, Team Brunel has been more cracked on around 130° making 20, as Team SCA has chosen to stay high. As a result, at around 1030 UTC yesterday morning, Bouwe Bekking's team pulled into the lead.

Images below (click to enlarge) courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

Since then, the boats have passed through (without incident it seems...) the Northern Mariana Islands, the southern four passing just north of Guam, famous for its strategic position for US forces during WW2.

As the southerly group has converged on her track, Team Brunel has pulled out an impressive 80 mile lead. With her advantage 'banked', she has now turned on to a heading similar to the boats behind, keeping herself between them and the mark.

Unufortunately on board Team Brunel, Dutch crewman Gerd-Jan Poortman has suffered an injury. During a sail change in the dead of the night, the bowman was caught by a wave and thrown against one of the raised daggerboards. The result is a burst eardrum and a bruised arm. Poortman was immediately packed off to his bunk with a heavy dose of painkillers. “That’s when you think, shit, the next stage of the leg is rounding Cape Horn,” says Poortman.
 

Poortman is something of a specialist in hitting the daggerboards. In 2006, the same thing happened on the ABN AMRO Two, when he broke his back. Because he later missed out on the legendary Cape Horn stage again later with Team Delta Lloyd, rounding the Horn has become a goal in itself for Poortman.

Since then Poortman has reported for duty despite being hardly able to move his arm. Skipper Bouwe Bekking had a different view, however, and the bowman was sent back to his bunk. The same remedy also did the trick earlier this week when Pablo Arrarte was struck down with 'flu.

Despite a full sick-bay, the mood on board Team Brunel is excellent. “The water is warm, our speed is good and the waves are perfect,” said Rokas Milevičius from the boat. “For me, these are ideal sailing conditions.” But the masterminds behind this brilliant tactical manoeuvre are keeping a cool head. “I’m only going to party if we sail into Auckland in first place,” says Andrew Cape. The Australian navigator and skipper Bouwe Bekking had one hundred per cent confidence in the northern route. “It wasn’t a gamble at all,” says Bouwe Bekking. “I was amazed that the other teams didn’t go north with us.” “It was still a risky decision though,” adds Jens Dolmer. “If it had gone wrong, we would have been in a fine mess.”

Andrew Cape is less than impressed with the strategy of the other teams. “The other boats are sailing very defensively. It’s like a procession and nobody dares to make a decision like ours.” The young sailors like Louis Balcaen and Rokas Milevičius are very happy that their skipper and navigator have had the guts to do something different to the rest. “We have to keep barrelling on and build up a lead of more than 100 miles,” shouts Laurent Pagès euphorically. Bouwe Bekking makes light of the French sailor’s enthusiasm. “The further ahead we are, the easier it will be for them to sail round us at the Equator. I want a big lead after the Equator.”

At the 0640 UTC sched Team Brunel had 1340 miles to go to get to the Solomon Islands turning mark but there is much sailing to be done to get there. While at present she is at around 12°N, there is the all-important crossing of the Doldrums ahead. At this point the navigators must be thanking their lucky stars that they are some 600 miles northeast of the great circle from the top of the Philippines to the Solomons for if they had followed the shortest route, they would now be feeling the first effects of around 1,100 miles of sailing in Doldrums or Doldrums-like conditions. To the east, where the boats are heading, the Doldrums are considerably narrower and when they get there we can expect that they will head due south to get through them as fast as possible - as is the case in the more familiar crossings of the ITCZ in the Atlantic.  To the east at present the Doldrums are lying over the Equator.

Meanwhile the race goes on. While, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing has fallen in behind Brunel in second place, the fight has been on for third between Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE with Dongfeng pulled briefly early yesterday morning (UTC), before Xabi Fernandez' team on the Spanish VO65 regained her lead. At the latest sched, MAPFRE is seven miles astern of ADOR in terms of DTF with Dongfeng a further six miles back.

Yesterday Dongfeng reported another technical problem with their VO65 when their J1 halyard failed at the mast. The crew scrambled to get the J2 hoisted while onboard handyman Kevin Escoffier managed to effect a repair in a matter of hours.

“Here’s what happened," recounted OBR Sam Greenfield. "After dark the wind picked up and the sea got testy. The crew hoisted the J2 fast but it wasn’t suited for the angle we were sailing, so we lost miles on the fleet. It was seven hours of work in total to figure out how to get the J1 back up on another halyard but it revealed a significant frustration. When I ask the team about it all they say is that it was a bad night. So all I have to say is that it was a bad night."

Meanwhile Team SCA has sadly taken up residence in last place again, as rather than bearing away with Team Brunel, but as a result still holds some weather guage on the fleet.

Yesterday Matt Knighton reported from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing: 

There are good noises on a Volvo Ocean 65 and there are bad noises.

Many bad noises aren’t that bad at all – the jaw jerking sound of a running backstay being eased, the kettle whistling because it’s time for your watch.

However, the sound our reaching strut made yesterday when it folded in half like a taco? That was a very bad noise.

The sharp bang woke anyone up who was off watch and the sound was so loud it shook through the whole boat. Reaching through the Pacific at 20 knots, several tons of energy was suddenly released in a split second and the shock wave was felt by every hair on our bodies.

The most amazing part of the breakage though, was how quickly everyone reacted.

The gap between Dongfeng and us had been growing and shrinking like an elastic band all day and every second the strut was down was costing us precious mileage. Seemingly even before the sound had stopped everyone had their gear on to charge out into the whitewater on deck.

The maze of action on the boat was astounding. The second strut was already on its way out of the hatch while Daryl was tightening a new pad-eye from below. We were back.

Dripping wet and out of breath, Wendy and Ian were first down below after the fix. Ian joked, “Why do we do this again? For the fame and fortune?”

“Fortune?” Wendy chuckled. “Nah, I do this cause I can’t sit behind a desk.”

The latest sked showed we’d put on more than 10 nm on Dongfeng and MAPFRE. Ian suspects there may have been gear failure on the rest of the fleet after the 25 knots of breeze throughout the night.

Hopefully we don’t break another strut – we didn’t bring a backup this leg.