Volvo Ocean Race: Brutal pictures from the storm, AkzoNobel struggles with breakage

At the start of the sixth day of the third leg, Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team continues to lead the field deep down in the Southern Ocean. Close to the 46th parallel, Dongfeng and the Spanish team Mapfre, which is only around 20 nautical miles behind, are chasing eastwards, heading for Melbourne in Australia. 80 nautical miles behind Dongfeng, the Danish-American team Vestas 11th Hours Racing claimed third place on Friday afternoon. However, the biggest gains of the previous six hours were made by the pursuers Brunel (around 25 nautical miles) and Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag (just under 30 nautical miles). They had previously sailed further north and used the strong winds to catch up.

Gusts of up to 62 knots!

The crew on the Dutch boat is struggling to cope with the damage caused by an unsuccessful jibe in the storm: the mast track was torn out and several battens were broken

Behind the Volvo Ocean Race fleet lies the first encounter with a severe storm in this 13th edition of the race around the world. All the crews have been through hair-raising conditions, with gusts of up to 62 (!) knots. The crews have emerged surprisingly unscathed. So far, only AkzoNobel has reported an annoying breakage; on the boat flying the Dutch flag, the mast track broke out of the rig. Several battens were also broken. The mishap caused by a failed gybe has since set the team of skipper Simeon Tienpont and Chris Nicholson, who was steering the gybe, back considerably. The crew had to slow down their pace and at the same time push ahead with the repair work with all their might, but by Friday afternoon they were only in last place 260 nautical miles behind the leading boat.

Dongfeng's on-board reporter Martin Keruzore described the stormy ride of the past two days as follows: "Sleeping feels like sitting in a car at the Paris-Dakar Rally. You just have to get rid of the sand and add an extra dose of humidity. The ceiling is dripping. Our noses too. The temperatures have dropped significantly. You can't do without gloves on deck if you want to use your fingers relatively quickly at the end of the watch to get a warm meal."

Some teams are still benefiting from winds of 25 to 30 knots, while others are already experiencing less pressure. Jeremie Lecaudey noted on "Turn the Tide on Plastic": "The albatrosses now regularly accompany us. They surf over the highest crests of the waves and then circle the boat to look for their next breakfast." Lecaudey went on to report from on board: "Later that night, while editing the day's stories, you hear about old stories and the Southern Ocean, about the last edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, about the Whitbread a long time ago, when Nico Lunven's father still sailed it. - At exactly the same time in exactly the same place under the same conditions."

Bouwe Bekking, whose team has since managed to reduce the almost 200 nautical mile deficit to just over 150 nautical miles, wrote in a message from on board: "It's wet and wild. Typing is almost impossible. Everything is soaking wet. We have to make sure that this computer stays intact - it's our navigation computer. Our onboard reporter's computer was less fortunate... Crew and boat are fine. We sailed a bit conservatively, because this low-pressure area is massive! We can't afford to break. Firstly because it's an extremely long way to Australia. And also because we will incur penalty points for outside help. I can imagine that they could be expensive, because there are double points on this leg. Jibing is no fun at all right now. Today we jibed in 45 knots of wind. Luckily we were surfing a huge wave and the main came across well. You're constantly worried about the battens or the mainsail track in these conditions. We measured the heaviest gust so far at 62 knots. It's a good thing we had the gennaker furled at that point. Now we're riding out the storm. Kyle's ankle is feeling better. Some people look tired. But everyone is fine."