A solid three iron. That is what it would take to whack a golf ball off the mainsail of half the fleet at this stage as we literally drift off the coast of Malaysia and its major city Kuala Lumpur.
‘Bang bang’. Loud stamping on the deck means ‘get your butt up here ASAP’, so automatically I jump out of the bunk and run on deck. The jib is being dropped, while the main is completely eased.
What a great day indeed, 12 knots looking straight down the eye to Cochin. The sun shone, the breeze was pleasant and we were on the way home, finally sailing in the direction we wanted to go. It wasn’t 20 knots, but this felt as close to champagne sailing as we had experienced since the trades of leg one. We didn’t care any more that the fleet was finished and we still had 400 miles to sail, we were on the rumb line and, with or without Coke, it tasted good.
So this will be my last blog of Leg 2…even if we are stuck out here for another week, I can’t take it anymore I jut can’t take it……all this sweating onto the keyboard makes typing a nightmare. No seriously, I’ve had enough now, as my friend Meg once said, ‘take me home or lose me forever’.
Painful. That is the only way to describe this leg.
Forty miles from the finishing line… What a leg! Hard one and bad one for us… but all is not negative at all. The crew has been doing a great job and every sailor knows that in our sport, you do not always control all the aspects. Saying that, once again, the strongest have won and I use the opportunity to congratulate them. They put together a great job to win this leg and create a significant lead on the scoreboard. Ericsson 3 and her Scandinavian crew are also very impressive and are giving a great response to their ‘older brothers’.
Anyway, as Bouwe said after finishing second, this race is far from finished and lot will still happen, as we know in this Volvo Ocean Race.
As I write, we still don’t know if we will finish fourth, fifth or sixth. We are still fighting against ‘Black Betty’ (ex ABN ONE, actual Delta Lloyd). I am pleased to see this boat being part of the fleet and giving a hard time to the new generation boats. It is a good signal for ‘short budget campaigns’ in the future. The different in speed between the 3rd generation Volvo 70 will be insignificant and very small with the second generation.
This hard leg is a good test for our team, the way to handle the ‘hard moments’ either gives more strength or destabilises a team. It is an important period for us. We are four boats on an even line to the finish, fighting for 4th place…or 7th, after more than 2 weeks sailing. I guess it is a great leg!
See you soon.
Sidney Gavignet – watch captain
Have you ever had some bad news that is on such scale that the only reaction is to laugh? The mind refuses to cry or become upset so humour is the prevailing emotion. That is what happened on board when forecast, after windless forecast, confirmed that the wind had run out. We could choose to rant and stamp, but we all know that it would do no good. The water’s surface said it all, keep still, calm and create no waves.
We have about 20 miles left and hopefully we will keep the breeze we have now and continue to the finish line, without another stop.
Sails hang wilting; just gravity fills the huge wind-catching wings. Like the intricate lines on a fingerprint, the load threads are complex and technical. The high load reinforcement, strength and intelligent design, all redundant now as a bunch of bed sheets sewn randomly together would do a comparable job in this windless sea. The keel is canted to leeward, healing the boat over, anything to help the sails to fill with some kind of shape and form. I half expect a dank mist to role in and a menacing black crow flap onto our port spreader to watch the scene unfold.
We went stealth yesterday to avoid helping the guys coming from behind. We did not want to show them where we would park so they could sail around us.
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