Volvo Ocean Race: Nightmare in the Southern Ocean: "a jibe every hour"

"For the next 30 hours we'll be making a gybe at least every hour, it's a nightmare," said Dongfeng's skipper Charles Caudrelier yesterday, just ahead of Mapfre in the lead. The constant manoeuvres are pushing the crews to the limit. A jibe requires all of them. The free watch is awakened and must either go on deck to support the manoeuvre or stay below to move all the movable ballast, such as the sails, from one side of the boat to the other. Up to 30 minutes of hard physical work is required for a single manoeuvre.

"It's no fun," continues Caudrelier. "You have to move about 600 kilograms every time. The boat moves, you can't sleep, it's just awful. But we're off Mapfre, so that's good."

Daily summary with repair on Akzonobel

The reason for the frequent manoeuvres is a special constellation of wind direction and course position. The Dongfeng Race Team and Mapfre sail in a zigzag east-southeast direction as close as possible to the southern limit of the race course, which is formed by the Antarctic Ice Exclusion Zone (AIEZ), a virtual line to keep the crews away from dangerous icebergs. There is less wind in the north due to an area of high pressure, but the further south they go, the more wind drives them, but also takes them away from the direct course to Melbourne.

Overall, the field has shuffled further together again, with Dongfeng just five nautical miles ahead of Mapfre, followed 24 nautical miles behind by Vestas, Brunel 66, Sun Hung Kai 77, Turn the Tide on Plastic 143.

Team AkzoNobel is also back in the race. After the mast track of the mainsail came loose, this leg seemed to be as good as over. However, the second attempt at a repair was apparently successful, which seems incredible considering the conditions. In metre-high waves and winds of between 25 and 30 knots, the mast track, a traveller track, was glued below deck, brought on deck, glued to the mast, fixed with tape and rope and took 24 hours to harden. Finally, the team reported that the mainsail was set again and the team could sail at 100 per cent. They were promptly able to reduce their deficit by 125 nautical miles.

The current race action in the tracker...