VOR Heading to Fiji

The Volvo fleet is rumbling down the track towards Fiji, which is not a mark of the course or a scoring gate, but it is a significant milestone mentally for the five crews racing in this 12,300 nm leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, the longest in the 36-year history of the event. After passing Fiji, there is still approximately 1000 nm to run to the first of two gates, where the first points will be scored. The western-most boat in the fleet, fourth-placed Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED), is having to sail at the tightest angle since the start of the leg and the yacht feels more constrained than before. Competition is very close. PUMA (Ken Read/USA) and Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) are just 23 and 24 nm from Ericsson 4 and both Telefónica Blue and Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) are making some fast runs. Everything is still open for the first scoring gate at 36 degrees south. Now the thinking is that the teams are out of the worst of the ‘squall zone’, and the sailing is starting to settle down.

Squalls Bring Gains &Losses

All five boats racing down the South Pacific Ocean in leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race are engaged in a battle with nature. The doldrums and the associated clouds and squalls are causing big gains and huge losses across the fleet as the boats get pushed further away from their optimum courses by the unstable weather. With clouds, come big gains and losses. Two days ago, Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) sailed into PUMA’s world and has been their constant companion ever since.

Making the most of the conditions and very much back in the game is Ian Walker’s Green Dragon. The team is 86 nm to the east of Ericsson 4’s track and averaging a steady 13.5 knots. Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) is in fourth place, but closing quickly and averaging 10 knots of boatspeed. Bekking is still playing it conservatively, following the pack and not making any radical decisions. Their track takes them 84 nm west of the tracks of PUMA and Ericsson 3.

1-Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael)
2-Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson)
3-PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read)
4-Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking)
5-Green Dragon IRL/CHI (Ian Walker)

Qingdao to Rio Day 10

It’s day 10 of the 12,300 nm leg of the Volvo Ocean Race from Qingdao to Rio, and Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) has fought off her opponents and still leads the race south as the team crossed into the southern hemisphere. However, there has been plenty of excitement on the race track and also some narrow escapes with wildlife in the last 24 hours. Controlling the pack, Ericsson 4’s crew are describing the sailing conditions as glorious. The crew of third placed Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) is fully back in the game.

Ian Walker/GBR and his Green Dragons are reaping the reward of their easterly course as they reel in the leaders, gaining 147 nm from 1300 on Saturday to 1300 GMT today. The team is still well over 100 nm to the east of where the leaders passed and this could mean big gains or huge losses if things go against the team. They have overtaken Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) who is sailing in the wake of the leading trio, but not without a very close incident with a huge whale first thing this morning. As the fleet races on through the endless atolls and islands, the crew of Telefónica Blue was rather shocked to receive a message on their navigational warning system, which indicated volcanic activity very close to a position the team crossed two days ago.

Boissieres Finished

At 14h35'50" GMT Sunday 22nd February Arnaud Boissieres, the skipper of Akena Verandas, crossed the finish line of the 2008-2009 Vendee Globe in seventh place after 105 days 02 hours 33 minutes and 50 seconds of racing averaging 11.04 knots on the water covering 27,841 miles. He sailed the 24,840 theoretical miles at an average speed of 9.85 knots.

Hard Night For Green Dragon

Saturday 21 February has been a difficult night aboard the Green Dragon, but Ian Walker and his men feel they may soon start to reap the benefits of their easterly positioning. Gaps are apparent at the front and the rear of the field as boats find themselves in different weather patterns on the approach to The Doldrums. Meanwhile, Green Dragon's Damian Foxall is
honoured by his countrymen. The front-runners, Ericsson 4 and PUMA, are midway between the Islands of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International dateline and still north of the equator. With 2,500 miles of this 12,300 marathon covered, Ericsson 4 has stretched its advantage over PUMA to 50 miles, a loss for PUMA of over 40 miles in the last 24 hours. Ericsson 3 has also lost ground and now has a deficit of 101 miles.

Volvo Update

It is still a hot port-gybe reach for the five boats engaged in the charge south during leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race. The fleet is currently 1200 nm north of New Ireland in the Solomon Islands, the area where the doldrums are lurking and light and shifty breeze await.

Top boat is Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA), with PUMA (Ken Read/USA) positioned neatly on her starboard hip, 45 nm to the northwest, but only 10 nm astern. Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) has chosen the middle road, while Ian Walker still has Green Dragon in the east, 156 nm further east than PUMA. Bringing up the rear is Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED), who is ploughs a lonely furrow almost exactly the wake of Ericsson 3, but 267 nm behind Ericsson 4.

Reaching, although rather monotonous, does have its advantages. There are no sails or gear to stack when the boat tacks, and it looks as if this will be the case for at least another week.

Marc Guillemot Took 3rd Place

Marc Guillemot (Safran) crossed the Les Sables d'Olonne finish line at 01h21min36sec GMT on Sunday to clinch a hard won third place in this epic sixth edition of the Vendee Globe solo non stop around the world race.

Guillemot managed to wrest third from Sam Davies, GBR, (Roxy) by a net 1 hour and 19 minutes and 25 seconds. Guillemot received a time compensation of 82 hours for diverting from his course to assist in the evacuation of injured Yann Elies 800 miles south of Australia in the Southern Ocean.

Samantha Davies, GBR, (Roxy) crossed the finishing line at 00hrs 41mins 01 secs as the third competitor to complete this epic sixth edition of the Vendée Globe solo non stop around the world race and return to Les Sables d'Olonne. Ironically Davies had to wait two days and two hours (50 hours) to see whether she hang on to third place in this sixth Vendée Globe as the final result depended on Marc Guillemot's finishing time.

British yachtswoman Dee Caffari, 36, onboard Aviva celebrates as she sets a new world record as the first woman to have successfully completed a solo, non-stop circumnavigation both ways around the world. She managed to complete the voyage even after sail delamination caused two huge holes in her main sail. The jubilant solo skipper and former PE teacher crossed the Vendee Globe finish line after 98 days at sea. She has been sponsored by the world's fifth largest insurance group Aviva since her first world record voyage in 2005/06. She started her current race, the Vendee Globe on 9 November 2008 from Les Sables d'Olonne, France.

ETNZ Winner of Pacific Series

The Race Committee delayed the next start while it waited for conditions to moderate. However, three hours later with the wind gusting over 30 knots, it abandoned racing for the day and said it would shorten the best-of-seven final to a best-of-five. Racing resumed the next day.

Alinghi, Defender of the 33rd America's Cup, congratulated Emirates Team New Zealand on winning the inaugural Louis Vuitton Pacific Series Cup in Auckland, New Zealand.

Alinghi won the first match of the best of five series, but ETNZ took the next three to claim the LVPS Cup. Next for these 33rd America's Cup teams are the pre-regattas scheduled for July and October this year, followed by the Spanish Challenger of Record's annual regatta in November.

Volvo Leg 5

Ericsson 3 skippered by Magnus Olsson finished Leg 4 on start Day for Leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Qingdao, China, to Rio De Janeiro. They arrived in Qingdao at 10:01 GMT or 18:01 local time. At 19:50 local time, (11:50 GMT) Ericsson 3 crossed the start line of leg five, nearly seven hours after PUMA, Ericsson 4, and Green Dragon. It will be another 12,300 nautical miles for this crew until they can relax.

In a dramatic opening to leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race, minutes before the start gun fired, Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) dropped her sails and returned to port, leaving a fleet reduced to three boats to contest the start in Qingdao. Minutes before the five-minute warning signal, the crew of Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED), currently second in the overall standings and winner of the last two offshore legs, dropped their mainsail and skipper Bouwe Bekking turned his boat back towards Qingdao. He had informed the Race Committee that his team were suspending racing, which under the rules, must be for a minimum of two hours.

The boat was immediately hauled out of the water assess the damage caused when the boat went aground briefly, at a speed of six or seven knots. A crewman immediately went into the water, but was unable see clearly the extent of the problem and Bekking made the decision to suspend racing. The boat could possibly need a full structural check, something which could take up to 24 hours.

At first mark, PUMA had gained control and, with a man at the top of the mast searching for wind, rounded 53 seconds ahead of Green Dragon. Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA), sailing with the same crew that started the race in Alicante, was in third place, seven seconds behind. The team resumed racing last night, 19 hours behind the fleet. At 1300 today, they were 202 nm in arrears, amounting to approximately nine hours in the current conditions.

Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) was first over the line in a slow-motion start in-front of her home town crowd, only to relinquish to the lead to PUMA (Ken Read/USA) as the reduced fleet began their epic journey of 12,300 nautical miles around the infamous Cape Horn and into Rio de Janeiro in Brasil.

Ericsson 3 Back On Course

It’s been a race against odds for the past two weeks to get Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) repaired, back in the water and to Qingdao in time for the start of leg five. The team restarted leg four on 11 February at 2344 GMT from position 25 51.94N 121 52.97E. The boat will cross the line in Qingdao, repack the boat and then restart leg five as soon as possible.