Volvo Ocean Race Press Information

design-and-build

Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) and Kosatka Team Russia (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) have been fighting their own private battle for the minor placings. 

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Light six knots breeze, calm water, there is no cloud in the sky. December 21st. The Volvo Ocean Race fleet is sailing the Malacca Strait somewhere between Sumatra and Indonesia. Christmas is approaching and as to our Russian cold New Year with its New Year tree, it is simply impossible to imagine it here 250 miles off the equator.

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As the fleet is becoming compressed, we see opportunities on the horizon, 300 mile to the finish. Our closest friends, Green Dragon and Telefónica Black have split and we want to catch at least one of them.

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Today is known on our boat as ‘D-Day’: ‘Do or die’ – make or break. We will have to punch through and if we do, our Christmas ETA is looking pretty good. If we don’t, well, we might spend it here and have to ring the shore crew to have some Christmas leftovers send to us.

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For the first time since we left the southern tip of India, we have seen land again. Even some hints of civilization were greeting our eyes this morning on the hills of the island of Palau We.

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Very sorry for the guys on Delta Lloyd, I hope that they will make it safely to Singapore. Once in the Malacca Strait, they should be all right and will have no disadvantage in the light downwind conditions.

We were very happy last night with our performance, gaining with every sched on the whole fleet. The boat seems to be quick in these upwind conditions and we can push the boat hard, not fearing any breakages (touch wood again and again).

It seems we are laying the mark and the fleet will have to tack, how close we can come and whether we can overtake any boats depends on speed and the wind direction the fleet will experience after tacking. We will keep fighting for every mile until the finish line in Singapore. Ericsson 4 shows impressive speeds whenever they line up with other boats and Ericsson 3 is not far from that, we all could envy them a little bit.

Less than a week to Christmas and no Christmas feelings on board. It is too warm, too wet, the lack of lights in the streets, Christmas songs and shopping orgies. Still I hope we make it in time to spend Christmas with our families in Singapore or at home.

Andreas Hanakamp – skipper

"Max daggerboard down, please".  This rare call in the race so far marks the beginning of the 1000 NW beat to the top of Sumatra. To give you an idea of just how long a beat that is, it is as far as Miami to New York, slightly shorter than Sydney to Auckland or from Holland to the very most southern tip of Italy. Wow, that is more than a two-day drive!

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The first two days haven’t been as we feared in our worst nightmares of no wind areas, just a few hours very light, but the breeze never died away completely.

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All doubts about the ‘new route’ must have been wiped out with the Cochin stopover. India and the city of Cochin have been a fantastic host to the fleet; people welcomed us with such a friendship and enthusiasm. Even though coming here was difficult for us at the end of leg 2, I wish to come back again.

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