Volvo Ocean Race: Of shower gloves and seaweed

After over 20 knots yesterday, the wind dropped to less than ten in the afternoon, and nothing changed during the night. With a stern wind, this meant a lot of gybing for the crews. At the last position report this morning, there was a gap of 15 nautical miles between the leading team, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, and the last-placed team, Vestas Wind. The Danes had held out a beat out into the Atlantic too long around midnight, jibed back too late and lost ground in the process.

Earlier, the team led by Australian skipper Chris Nicholson had caught a clump of seaweed with the keel. The boat had to be stopped and the headsail was recovered. They sailed backwards by backing the mainsail until the seaweed fell off the keel. This cost valuable nautical miles. The action is captured on video. The infernal noise below deck can also be experienced very well in the film.

Removing the seaweed

In general, on-board reporting is more comprehensive than ever before. But sometimes that doesn't make it any easier to find out what's relevant. For example, when Corinna Halloran, a reporter from SCA in Sweden, reports on hygiene products in an apparently sponsor-driven manner:

"Today was a good day to use our Tena shower glove," she writes. (That's a glove made of moisturising paper produced by team sponsor SCA). "If there's one real advantage Team SCA has over the other teams, it's this: a shower. OK, there's no running water and our hair sticks to our heads in a streamlined fashion. But feeling clean after a few days in the salt and sweat is an indescribable pleasure."

But Halloran also has some interesting things to say about the race coverage: for example, that the team is now slowly finding a rhythm on the fourth day of the race. "Our bodies are starting to get used to the short sleep," she writes. "Most of the time it's only two hours, although we have a four hours on, four hours off rotation. Most of the team have to go out during their free watch for a tack, a sail change. At some point, the body fights against the mind and you adapt to getting by with short sleep phases. We have now reached this mode."