To the relief of the battered and bruised, the wind and waves have eased, but what Poseidon served up in the first 48 hours of the stage was not from bad parents. "Without a shadow of a doubt, that was the hardest first night I've ever experienced on a Volvo stage," said Camper's co-skipper Stu Bannatyne laconically. He should know, because this is his fifth Volvo Ocean Race. Elsewhere there are reports of pain: Puma sailor Casey Smith (bow) suffered a back injury, and Thomas Johanson (helmsman), who had only joined as a replacement in Auckland, bowled out his right shoulder. But both are on the mend, reports Captain Ken Read.
But the worst hit was Abu Dhabi, who wanted to hurry after the others after the pit stop in Auckland, but were surprised on the way out by gusts of up to 60 knots - that's a whopping 11 Beaufort - in the Colville Channel. Skipper Ian Walker decided to turn round in the shelter of some islands. This was the right decision in terms of safety and probably also for tactical reasons. "We're in a quandary," the Englishman admitted in frustration. "Either fight the storm and not do much, or wait and lose even more miles to the competition?"
In fact, Abu Dhabi's backlog grew exorbitantly as a result and earned Walker the derision of some bloggers, who described the approach as "soft" in their comments and said that Peter Blake, Grant Dalton or Pierre Fehlmann would never have been embarrassed to resort to such measures in their day or even endure a postponement of the start due to bad weather as in Sanya. The boats are exciting but fragile and the whole thing is, according to one commentator, "no longer an adventure but just a commercial exercise that is ruining the sport".
However, safety is still the top priority, which is why, after analysing the latest satellite images, it was decided to move the course limits further north to avoid the risk of drifting icebergs. The Volvo press office happily announced that this would only change the length of the leg, but not the intermediate position. The navigators, however, saw things a little differently. They, who spent months before the race poring over weather and current data to determine the best route, now had to calculate new course variants. "Unfortunately, they've moved the gates 120 miles north," said Campers navigator Will Oxley, whose team is currently in second place behind Telefonica. "The high is at this latitude, so the stage is very different, easier and with more headwind."
The tracker software, which unfortunately sometimes provides unreliable data at the moment, showed Telefonica 13 miles ahead of Groupama at 02:47 in the morning and Camper and Puma a further two and four miles behind respectively.
More on the Event page and about the Live stream and the YouTube channel.
Current positions and distances in the Tracker.
