There has been so much lane hopping and driving under the influence among the fleet that sooner or later there is going to be a tap on the shoulder from the local traffic cops.
The main offender has been Delta Lloyd. At least navigator Wouter Verbraak was prepared to offer up a full confession for the boat’s crooked miles long before the booze bus arrives.
"Following our wallowing tracks, one might think that we have supplemented our freeze-dried food with some caipirinhas from Brazil,” his statement read this morning.
"Certainly a little cocktail at sunset would be welcome, but I can guarantee you, there is not a drop of alcohol to be found on our boat. So what is up with our drunken man's track? Some call it myth, some live by it, and onboard it is known as the diurnal variation.”
Verbraak added that some members of the crew have bastardised the term to “di-urinal variation”. Some unwarranted urine sampling at Wouter's expense?
Put simply, it means that in the southeast trades, the neighbourhood the fleet currently finds itself in, the wind speed and direction goes through a daily cycle of fluctuations. Mornings – more wind and more left wind; afternoons – lighter and more right; early evenings – squalls and more left wind again; nights – lighter and more right wind. Got it? Verbraak’s explanations not mine.
Far too technical for an afternoon report but there you go. Nonetheless, the meanderings moved Delta Lloyd up to second place overnight.
Elsewhere, with squalls about, sail changes are coming in rapid succession. And, even for an old sea dog like Ericsson 3 skipper Magnus Olsson, there are new tricks to be learned.
Encountering one of the numerous squalls in this part of the world, his instinct was to avoid it. On this occasion, however, there were profits to be had from bucking tradition. "We tried to avoid a squall, which you normally should do, but in this case we should have hit it instead of avoiding it. There was more wind in the squall and it had a fairly good direction. Normally you wouldn’t go with it, but sometimes you have to.”
There are good days and bad days and good clouds and bad, a fact underlined by Telefonica Blue skipper Bouwe Bekking. Yesterday, he says, was a bad day at the office. On the gains and losses ledger, they were penniless. By contrast, Delta Lloyd’s pockets were bulging.
"Delta Lloyd had a glamour day, and some way, somehow made big gains,” he lamented. They are only five miles east of us, having missed all the bad clouds.
"You have good ones and bad ones, so we just keep working hard to get everything out of the boat.”
The somewhere-some way-some day-some-how theme was also picked up by Rick Deppe. In an email headlined “Something from somewhere”, PUMA’s Media Crew Member revealed that it has been a quiet time on board PUMA for the past 30 hours.
Right now the shoe boat is on starboard tack in the 10-15 knot wind range with it’s rivals in sight. As always, the three-hourly Position Reports are must reads on board.
“Yesterday was a little frustrating for the crew as we suffered a run of bad position reports on the rest of the fleet throughout the day,” he said. “During the night things did turn in our favour a little, when we had a few good runs against the fleet but we still need to find a little extra something from somewhere if we want to be a player at the scoring gate.”
Speaking of the scoring gate at Fernando de Norohna, 450 miles away, we’ve been here before, on Leg 1, a point not lost on Andrew Cape. Deppe reported that the PUMA navigator noted that they had passed through this same stretch of water on 25th October – going in the other direction.
There were unconfirmed reports that “Capey” was humming along to an ABBA favourite at the time ... If I had to do the same again, I would my friend Fernando.
It also seems as if there was something in the air that night as Deppe went on to report a totally random discussion on board. “Sailing along under a lovely moonlit sky, randomly the topic of what we'd be doing if we weren’t sailboat racers came up,” he wrote. “There were some really quite amusing and surprising as well as some not so surprising answers ...
"Bob (Robert Greenhalgh) – professional big game fisherman. He would be the owner and operator of his own game fishing boat and live somewhere fantastic.
"Justin (Ferris) – not working but living off a large family inheritance.
"Michi (Michael Muller) – professional student in Germany.
"Salty (Rob Salthouse) – boat builder and designer ... anything so long as its near the water.
"Capey (Andrew Cape) – long haul Jumbo Jet pilot ... pretty much what he does now.
"They even asked me what I would be doing? Easy to answer ... rock star of course, to which the reply was you don’t have enough hair.”
When thoughts returned to their day jobs, the fisherman, pilots and rock stars on PUMA would all be aware that there are some occupational hazards ahead over the next 24-48 hours.
As the fleet approaches the most eastern tip of Brazil, the differences between inshore and offshore lanes and the resultant gains and losses will start to show. So says, the ubiquitous Verbraak.
"We have invested in a more offshore position, which has meant slower sailing and more distance travelled, today we will have to see if we can reap the benefits of this,” he said.
"The forecast certainly shows light winds along the shore this afternoon, so at the moment we are making sure we are keeping our easterly position to the fleet. Models however are notoriously poor in this area, and it always throws a little curve ball just when you think you have figured it all out.
"Nothing to do but to keep sailing hard, stay focused and monitor the fleet. Not long now to the scoring gate and boy, are the guys onboard keen to keep our second place.”
The fleet is due at the gate by midnight tomorrow night. By the 16:00 GMT Position Report, Telefonica Blue’s lead over Delta Lloyd stood at 10 miles. Ericsson 4 was third at +12. Telefonica Black (+16), PUMA (+22) and Ericsson 3 (+23) were locked in a three-way midfield battle with Green Dragon (+37) at the foot of the leaderboard.
The racing is close and PUMA’s skipper Ken Read, seeking a good result on the team’s home run to Boston, knows it. “Fact is, these boats are all raising their games all the time and this drag race to Fernando has been decided so far on a couple of fairly random wind shifts and a cloud or two. It is simply that close,” he says.
The margin between hero and zero is miniscule.
"First, the zero part. One squall on night three put a 5-7 mile separation between ourselves and the two Ericsson boats which we are constantly glued to. But off they went, over the horizon at night in a squall that gave them a significant breeze advantage and headed us about 60 degrees. Boom, done, gone. Time to re group.
"A day later, one night-time sched showed a five-mile gain to the good guys for no apparent reason except that E3 had sailed into a cloud ahead and got shut down for a bit. The difference in speed out here is ridiculously small which magnifies the small mistake or bit of misfortune that much more.
"We are in the hunt and understand completely how the chips have fallen so far. We simply have to avoid that one big mistake. Somehow. 450 miles to Fernando, then the sprint to Boston. Starting to smell the clam chowder from here.” That’s coagulated crustacea soup to you and me.
Finally, there was an impromptu catwalk show on PUMA. Where else? Entitled Brief Encounter, it has been caught on film. And, since this is a family show, and the clip contains scenes of near-nudity, Parental Guidance is recommended.