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On this subject

Volvo Ocean Race

Leg 3 : Abu Dhabi – Sanya – Day 10 – Close-hauled, riding the waves

1 February 2012

Goodbye to the Straits of Malacca and hello to the South China Sea! For the past day, the fleet has rid itself of meteorological uncertainties to once again link up with the north-easterly monsoon on their sprint of nearly 1,000 miles to Sanya. This will involve a long beat where the main difficulty will lie in playing the wind shifts and finding the right compromise between the Vietnamese gale and the perfect trajectory…

“We’re in the process of falling into some light airs, which weren’t forecast and we’re considering how best to manœuvre in response to these new conditions. It’s not an easy period for us as we thought we’d get pass the Anambas islands more easily… The atmosphere is a bit tense and everyone’s on deck! It’s nightfall and we can still see Telefonica’s nav lights: they’ve made pretty good gains on us over the past half hour when we ended up in this wind hole. Puma has also been within sight of us since this morning, but they’ve headed over to the other side of the race zone. The shipping has calmed down considerably since we exited the Singapore Straits and we’re entering a more open sea, which is just as well as the waters are more deserted now. We’re satisfied with our lot, even though we’d have liked to have been ahead of the Spanish, who are sailing well and fast, particularly upwind!” said Franck Cammas during the noon videoconference this Tuesday.

Exiting the archipelago

Midway through the night (local time, UTC +7), the Spanish were the first to leave the lights of Singapore in their wake, with Groupama 4 some three miles behind and Puma seven miles astern of them. Franck Cammas and his men then linked onto the long beat which awaits the fleet in their climb up to China. The first imperative in this journey is to get away from the coast as quickly as possible, so as to hook onto a monsoon system which is less disturbed by the effects of land, before making northing to quickly escape the archipelagos dotted about between Malaysia and Borneo (Anambas, Bunguran, Natanu-Besar, Mida…). Indeed, aside from the fact that these islands cause some extremely localised, pernicious effects, as Franck Cammas observed at noon this Tuesday, the route will be completely clear from 5°N and the temperatures will become more bearable.

“The next 800 miles are going to be complicated, sailing into the wind with fairly heavy seas along the coast of Vietnam: there’s a fine battle in perspective and we’re on the pace. Right now we have between ten and thirteen knots and gains and losses will be very fast in the making. The configuration of the end of this leg doesn’t really lend itself to any major strategic coups and everyone is likely to adopt approximately the same route to get around Vietnam. To have the leader within our sights motivates the whole crew: there are various stakes at play as well as tension, but we’ve made good progress on our weak points (upwind and light airs). We pulled off some good tactical coups in the Straits of Malacca and our confidence is building, though we’re not yet in front!”

A crescendo tempo

The current game plan involves getting into the right rhythm for tack changes, which is essential for maintaining (or even increasing) our lead over the Americans, whilst keeping an eye on the courses adopted by Camper and Abu Dhabi, who opted to remain offshore of the islands. Above all though, the crew is keen to hook up with Telefonica, and even overtake her thanks to a good option. Now that they’re out of the Straits of Malacca, the crews no longer have the heading and speed of their rivals on a permanent basis. Instead the AIS (positioning system using VHF radio) has been replaced by the usual 3-hourly position report. As a result it’s become more difficult to anticipate the reactions of their rivals if they’re not within sight, particularly at night when the nav lights only carry for one or two miles.

“It’s a pretty demanding leg in terms of trimming and concentration on deck. We’re happy to have escaped it without damage because the Straits of Malacca contain a huge amount of objects floating in the water. The only thing that got hit by a lump of wood was a rudder. We slipped through the nets and Groupama 4 is unharmed. Right now, we’re tackling some long beats in our drive northwards, but that won’t last all the way to Sanya… There are some fine wind rotations to be exploited and we now know the major options which are on the cards: we’re going to make considerably fewer manœuvres than of recent days for sure!”