Over the past 24 hours life on board has all been about tacking and stacking as the fleet makes its way to the nearest treasure chest – the scoring waypoint of Pulau We, at the entrance to the Malacca Strait, 500 miles away.
Telefonica Blue, having invested heavily in the southern-most route on the race track, continues to head the leaderboard. The lateral separation between Bouwe Bekking’s men and the rest has grown to over 110 miles.
Mark Chisnell covered the thinking behind Bekking and navigator Simon Fisher’s tactical choice in his TEN ZULU REPORT this morning. Doubtless the Telefonica Blue brains’ trust is being wracked as they await to discover how their instincts have played out.
The answer lies 24 hours away in an anticipated southeasterly wind shift. “The strings in our minds are very, very tight right now,” Bekking says. “Keep going, and wait for the shift, or bite the bullet and go north, tough. We have nice leverage, but we need a shift to stay in the game.
”Yes, it’s risky, very risky. We didn’t have a real opportunity to tack to the north, so we stuck to our guns and believe what we see on the weather charts. It is a matter of breathing in and out and staying calm. We have all faced worse moments in our sailing lives.”
By the 16:00 GMT Position Report, Telefionica Blue’s Distance To Leader (DTL) advantage to Ericsson 4 had been reduced to 33 nautical miles, a loss of six miles in the past three hours.
There is a game of trading places in the three-way scrap for third position. Currently Green Dragon (+47) holds sway over E3 (+48) and Telefonica Black (+52) while PUMA (+54) is watching developments with interest.
Meanwhile at the tail, the gap between Team Russia (+104), who are way up in the north, and Delta Lloyd (+107), following a more conservative track in the middle of the group, has narrowed.
There have been some hard yards on board
Everywhere, there is fear and loathing. The frequency of the tacking manoeuvres, has meant some hard yards as described by Green Dragon navigator Steve Hayles in an interview with Guy Swindells.
It is testing the stamina of the crews and the scruples of the Media Crew Members like Rick Deppe on PUMA.
”The tack-fest that we found ourselves in may have contributed to my feeling a little out of sorts on the boat as we tacked so many times approaching the second of two exclusion marks to the south of Sri Lanka,” he said.
”In the rules I'm not allowed to take part in the sailing of the boat and last night for some reason it just didn't feel right to be just standing around while the guys went hard at it hard for about five hours, after a while I really started to feel like a "lurker", so I filmed a few of the tacks but that just started to feel as though I was waiting for something bad to happen which it luckily didn't other than losing a few miles to some of our competitors.”
As alluded to in the leg 3 preview, this instalment of the 2008-09 race, a 1,950-mile slog from Cochin to Singapore, is all about the navigational challenges of tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, monsoons, fickle winds and busy shipping channels. And fishing boats. Hundreds of them.
So sailing challenges apart, and they are many and varied in these upwind conditions, there have been some close encounters with local fishermen. Team Russia caught one of their’s on camera.
Meanwhile, there was also a chance meeting for PUMA yesterday. Deppe pondered what it was like to be in the fishermen’s galoshes when a Volvo Open 70 comes into view. ”I can't imagine what the fishermen we crossed today were saying to each other aboard their small boat as we crossed close by them,” he wrote.
'Suddenly there was an outbreak of black humour’
"Maybe something along the lines of ‘there's something you don't see every day’ or perhaps ‘damn blow-boaters’. Had we cut their buoys too close? We didn't get caught up so I guess an inch is as good as a mile.
"I’m not sure if the fishermen were using some kind of fish trap or perhaps a Seine net but either way they were standing on the back of their boat waving enthusiastically about something and I'm going to assume that they were just plain old impressed to see our big red and black monster.”
In a previous life, Deppe spent time aboard a commercial fishing vessel in the harsh waters of Alaska as part of the film crew chronicling the television documentary series Deadliest Catch. He has often been asked to compare that existence with life on board a Volvo Open 70.
"I have to tell them that there are as many similarities as there are differences,” he says. “In my experience when it’s game-on and the fish are being hauled it can be very much like Volvo racing – just a head down, grunt up, bash your head against a wall race against whoever or whatever is next to you.
"The Volvo Open 70 is probably a more brutal and dangerous environment due to the sheer discomfort and the relentless nature of the race and whilst the race does take over you and your families’ lives, it does come to an end. The fisherman’s life however is measured out in generations and communities and when the fishing stops its usually a bad thing for all concerned.”
Today’s health and safety report comes from the keyboard of Ericsson 3 navigator Aksel Magdahl. He is deputizing for Media Crew Member Gustav Morin, who has been laid low by a stomach bug.
”Gustav is out of business, so I am allowed to write a few words today. We hope he will get better again soon, as he does not seem to enjoy it too much. He has been trying different locations onboard. His bunk – very risky. The toilet. And the stern,” he says.
”Suddenly there was an outbreak of black humor onboard, and one after one we commented to Gustav about different matters. Someone took his measures for a funeral chest, and someone offered him a beef steak with béarnaise sauce. And most guys asked him if they could have his chocolate bars for the rest of the trip.”
Get well soon Gustav.