The Volvo Ocean Race may be getting some heat over their race viewer and cumbersome website, but you have to admit; the racing is bloody marvelous. The lead boats expect to arrive in South Africa this weekend after thrashing the length of the North Atlantic in just three weeks. In the old day (by that I mean my days when I was racing professionally) it would take five weeks to cover the same distance and that was on much bigger boats. Add to that Ericsson 4, skippered by the Brazilian sailing star Torben Grael has smashed the 600 mile-per-day barrier for the first time ever by a monohull. Today (Oct 30, ‘08) Ericsson 4 logged a stunning 602.66 nautical miles in 24 hours. That is an average speed of more than 25 knots – AVERAGE. You have to know the boat was sailing 35-plus on occasion. This is insane sailing and they have not even hit the big stuff yet. One wonders what the Southern Ocean will bring.
My guess is that the deep south with its gale force winds and massive seas will not bring much higher speeds. These high performance boats don’t actually need more wind to set records. Sure they need a good breeze, but it’s more about a consistent, steady wind. This allows for the seas to build to a point where they are even and organized. Nothing worse that a building sea and then a sudden cross sea as the wind shifts. The conditions experienced by Ericsson 4 were just right and they smashed their own record set a day earlier, and It eclipsed the previous best 24-hour run for a racing monohull of 562.96 miles set by Sebastian Josse and the crew of ABN AMRO TWO on the second leg of the 2005-06 race from Cape Town to Melbourne.
While the VOR fleet has stretched out to just under 500 miles between the first and last boat, there is not much in it for the first two boats, Ericsson 4 and Puma skippered by Ken Read, Puma being just 76 miles off the pace. That’s 3 hours and anything can happen as the boats close on land. Table Mountain casts a long wind shadow. On two previous round-the-world races I sat in the lee of that magic mountain within spitting distance of the finish line, for more than 6 hours each time. The real interesting race will be between Telefonica Black, Team Russia and Delta Lloyd. Just 25 miles separate them and a lot of bragging rights is at stake. It’s not good for morale to be last into Cape Town.
So while many are griping over the slow-loading 3D Viewer and the fact that the website crashes some machines, I am focussing on the racing and the kind of nerve and stamina it takes to keep a massive boat sailing razor close to the edge of disaster for so long. They are going to deserve a cold Castle Lager or two when they hit the sunny shores of South Africa.
Tags: adventure, sailing, Volvo Ocean Race
