Day 22, 7 March, was the day the leaderboard was turned on its head. Ericsson 3 seized control of the fleet as it reached the halfway point on leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Norwegian navigator, Aksel Magdahl’s gamble on a northern heading, away from the pack and against conventional Southern Ocean wisdom, soon after the scoring gate at 36 degrees south, paid off for Ericsson 3.
The next day, Olsson had pulled out a lead of 111 nm over as the fleet raced on towards the second of the two scoring gates on this leg. Sheets were eased and as the breeze swung, and eyes became red with salt as waves rolled over the decks.
Simon Fisher/Telefónica Blue conceded that Ericsson 3‘s move was one of genius, and, onboard Green Dragon, navigator Wouter Verbraak was exhausted and everyone on the boat was miserable.
“I find myself having to pull all my will together to get a smile on my face that keeps me going,” he said.
PUMA’s skipper, Ken Read, had lost track of the days. “I couldn’t say, if my life depended on it, how may days we have been out here. It’s just one day at a time,” he said.
By day 24, 9 March, Ericsson 3’s lead had grown to 208 nm, as the team rode a weather system, which swept them quickly towards Cape Horn and the anticipated maximum points on offer at the scoring gate that it marked.
Their lead had almost doubled in the past 24 hours, while the rest of the fleet made losses of between 14 nm at best and 45 nm at worst. The pace was fast and furious. The fleet had split cleanly in two. PUMA and Ericsson 4 had followed Ericsson 3 in the north, while Telefónica Blue and Green Dragon had gone south and were at 45 degrees south.
Telefónica Blue had a near miss with a whale just at sunrise. “Just like when we were racing through logs and other debris coming into the Malacca Straits on leg three, we are all very relieved these obstacles disappear at night time,” wrote navigator Tom Addis.
The next day, Ericsson 3 was fully focussed on the ice gate ahead. They, with Ericsson 4 and PUMA were set up to cross it at its eastern end, while Telefónica Blue and Green Dragon were aiming for the eastern end. Olsson’s lead had pulled out another 64 nm and now he was a comfortable 272 away from his nearest rivals, but the chasing crews were hopeful of a compression in the fleet.
The weather system had started to out ride the boats and, one by one, they dropped off the back. Only Ericsson 3 was able to keep up, and soon she would face a brick wall too.
Day 26, 11 March was a day to remember, at least it was for Green Dragon when they spotted three icebergs about the size of a football pitch, passing two to windward and another to leeward.
Some crew on other boats were envious. “Cape Horn and seeing an iceberg will make this trip around the world complete for him,” said Bouwe Bekking when Jordi Calafat asked if they could gybe Telefónica Blue in the direction of Green Dragon so that he could see them too.
The next day, the front-runners had passed through the second ice gate and were headed south towards a block of high pressure. Meanwhile, Telefónica Blue was still sailing slowly north.
Today, day 28, two low-pressure systems have started to develop, which meant that Green Dragon is likely to the huge recipient of an early Christmas present. At least, that’s what PUMA’s Ken Read thinks.
Ken Read says that Green Dragon will be the first to jump on this system. “They will come ripping up to us, and, as we see it, start the leg all over again with Ericsson 4,” he said.
Green Dragon’s skipper, Ian Walker, says that the next four or five days are going to be a real test for the navigators and sailors alike. The low pressure will cut right across the path of the Dragon and bring with it winds in excess of 50 knots in places.
“This gives an opportunity to sail over the top of the low pressure as Ericsson 3 did, east of New Zealand. The question is: do you really want to put yourself in the path of these winds,” Walker reasons.
“To not do so could leave you in light air or headwinds and losing hundreds of miles,” he says. Walker and navigator Tom Addis are monitoring the development of the low pressure closely. “We don’t have to decide anything just yet,” Walker said.
The fleet has been at sea now for exactly one month, leaving Qingdao in China on 14 February. Throughout the month at sea, a milestone for all, but something of a personal record for many, the progress of the fleet is watched carefully, night and day, by a team of women, known as Duty Officers, situated in front of a bank of sophisticated software in the Operations Room at Race HQ in the UK.
Each Duty Officer works alone on a watch system of 12 hours on and 24 hours off throughout the period that the fleet is at sea. They are the first point of contact with the fleet, particularly if anything should go wrong. Theirs is a lonely, but highly responsible task and one that is much appreciated by the fleet.
The fleet reports to them regularly, but their long night watches are brightened especially by notes such the one Telefónica Blue’s skipper Bouwe Bekking wrote last night:
“Hi there. All well onboard the blue boat. You have a good watch…must be boring sometimes to be by yourself in this big building. But, just to let you know, we are happy that somebody keeps an eye on us all the time, we appreciate tremendously the job you are doing for us. Cheers, Bouwe.”
Today, as the four boats ahead of him prepare for a high-speed ride to Cape Horn, Bekking and his blue boat are still trapped by high pressure and have approximately 220 nm to go before they can finally bear away and hoist the spinnaker again.
Navigator Tom Addis is constantly bombarded by questions about timings and distances by the crew. “If I slip up and give a distance that is not fully consistent with the one I gave earlier they are on to me in an instant, like a pack of seagulls.”
For the crews, it does seem as if the end is in sight, although perhaps this is wishful thinking as there are still over 3,500 nm to cover until the finish in Rio.
“It’s just a question of time now until we are warm, dry, and clean and free once more,” says Ericsson 4’s MCM, Guy Salter.
Leg Five Day 28: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) DTF 3671 nm
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +154
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) + 194
Green Dragon IRL/CHI (Ian Walker/GBR) +414
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +828
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) DNS
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS