It is an agonising time for Ericsson 3 as Magnus Olsson watches the rest of the fleet catching him as his team fights yet another high-pressure area, which sits between them and the finish of leg five in Rio de Janeiro.
Over the past 24 hours, second-placed Ericsson 4 has closed the gap to 57 nm, gaining 29 miles. PUMA too has knocked a dent in the deficit and is now just 116 nm behind Ericsson 3, a gain of 89 nm in 24 hours. These three yachts are now 400 nm of the coast of Uruguay, roughly parallel to Cabo Palinio.
Green Dragon is still closer inshore, 210 nm off Mar del Plata in Argentina, which was a stopover in the 1981-82 Whitbread Race. Their inshore move, while looking disastrous yesterday, has gained the team 78 nm, just as navigator Wouter Verbraak hoped it would.
With just 771 miles still to run for Ericsson 3 before crossing the finish line in Rio and the safe haven of Marina Da Gloria where hot showers, cool beers and famous Brazilian food await, boat speeds are down to under 10 knots and yet the distance is tantalisingly close.
Word from Ericsson 4’s Trimmer Horacio Carabelli about Life onboard “We are slowly progressing towards Rio and we still have a lot to go. We just passed the projection line boarder between Brazil and Uruguay, but still we are below Montevideo in latitude, so in theory we are in Brazilian extended waters, which makes us feel a bit at home for Torben (Torben Grael), Joca (Joca Signorini) and me.
I’ve been sailing along this coast a good part of my life and normally to Rio is a light upwind trip at this time of the year unless you catch a front coming from south. Sailing itself has been pleasant in moderate winds, flat water and quite clear skies, much better than three – four days ago where we were fully dressed with all the underlayers we had available.
Nipper (Guy Salter MCM) has reorganised the food for the second time, every time making the day bag emptier, so it will be a painful 800miles from here.
The distance between the boats has changed quite a bit as we pass through the west of a high pressure area, gaining and losing on each sked. It’s difficult to say what will happen in the end we have to deal with the approach to Guanabara Bay that can be very tricky. According to the planning we should be in by the 25th at noon, so if we are lucky we have three more nights left in the lady that had carried us by more than 12500nm!! I’m really looking forward to stepping on solid land at Marina da Gloria, have a shower and sleep in a normal bed!!
The only boat achieving a reasonable speed is Telefónica Blue, but she still languishes at the tail end of the fleet, some 586 miles behind the leaders.
Bouwe Bekking had this to say today in his email ” We are ‘lucky’, as we have tonight a breeze very close to being in the right range of our J4 jib. The last 48 hours we have been sailing in the so-called no-mans-land, as we couldn’t have the right jib up, meaning sailing only at around 85% of our optimum. So even though it is a bumpy ride, we are making ok progress and the performance numbers are better, even though we are still on the wind. Within a day from now the breeze will start lighten off , but lifting which means less water over the deck and probably better progress, as we can hoist our big code 0.
Two new nicknames have appeared: SiFi (Simon Fisher) has turned into Sergej, as he starts looking like a Russian with his big dark beard, and Jordi (Jordi Calafat) into Rat, not sure were the last one came from. For sure over the next few days more names will get invented.
Jono (Jonathan Swain) nearly went nuts this evening, when he found out that somebody has eaten his chocolate bar. He has been going on about it the entire night watch, but it brought out some good stories as well. During previous races the snack department was very small, and the crews way more focused on their part, so some really funny accusations happened between people, so we highlighted a few and had a good laugh.
We just came of watch and stood with Xabi (Xabier Fernandez) looking at our PLC box and all wiring, and both thinking the same. It is amazing all our electrical installations have been holding up so well in nearly 100 % humidity, thanks to the guys in Sydney, who have done a remarkable job again and of course to Matt and Eduardo who keep an eye on everything during the stopovers. Where would we be without electronics? It could be fun to sail a leg without anything, and to see how we all can cope with that.”
Current predictions are for a finish for Ericsson 3, provided she can hold off the advances of Ericsson 4, on Wednesday morning, with the other two podium places being decided later in the day. Green Dragon is forecast to finish a day behind, in the afternoon of 26 March, while Telefónica Blue still has just over 1300 nm still to run.
Leg Five Day 37: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) DTF 771 nm
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +57
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +116
Green Dragon IRL/CHI (Ian Walker/GBR) +335
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +586
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) DNS
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS
Cape Horn Scoring Gate
(boat/date/rounding time/gate points)
Ericsson 3: 17.03.09 1222 GMT: 4 points
Ericsson 4: 17.03.09 1448 GMT: 3.5 points
PUMA: 17.03.09 2046 GMT: 3 points
Green Dragon: 18.03.09 0215 GMT 2.5 points
Telefónica Blue: 19.03.09 1339 GMT 2 points