With one day and one night to go, the six leading boats in the Volvo Ocean Race are expected to pass Cape Horn on Thursday and dive from the South Pacific into the South Atlantic. It will seem like a reprieve after the dramatic last few days. Around 24 hours in stormy conditions still lie ahead. The Hoorn Passage itself is also likely to be extremely challenging. The wind forecasts do not promise any significant relief for the area of the world's largest ship graveyard until Thursday. While the crews position themselves for the rounding, they continue to mourn the loss of John Fisher, who went overboard in the Southern Ocean and for whom, according to experts, there was no hope as early as Tuesday.
As the longest-serving participant on record, Team Brunel's skipper Bouwe Bekking summarised the thoughts of many sailors and fans following the tragic accident in his blog yesterday.
"We are deeply saddened by the loss of John Fisher, who we knew as 'Fish'. Our thoughts are with his family and of course the Scallywag crew. There hasn't been a moment since we heard about this that I haven't woken up and thought about him. It has increased my fear of losing a crew member. We're riding on the edge down here."
The 54-year-old Dutchman had already described the forces the crews have to contend with on Tuesday. "We're sailing in conditions where I'd be afraid of the tiles flying off the roof at home. And yes, we got hit too. There was a gust of 54 knots in the early morning. The gennaker was still up. We managed to keep the boat on its feet, but with a pulse of 190. There are plenty of these squalls. We get one about every half hour. Most of them involve about 5 knots more than the average winds. This afternoon, a black cloud gave us 65 knots - and yes, we did go down hard. Luckily everyone was on a lead. Because the whole thing happened during the change of watch, two people were standing by to furl the gennaker and off we went again with three reefs in the main and the small staysail - with the boat still travelling at 25 knots and more. The surface of the water was completely white. Frightening, yes, but also fascinating."
His crew gets little sleep, the veteran wrote: "We sail with standby watches throughout. This means that you stay in your full sailing gear for an hour after your watch, then go to your bunk for two hours and are on standby again an hour before your next watch. We're really looking forward to normal sailing, without squalls - so we can get some sleep!"
Early Wednesday morning, the organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race also reported that the crew of Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag would continue to sail on a north-easterly course towards the Chilean coast. The stricken crew were still battling stormy conditions but were receiving all possible support from the race organisers. Further facts about the course of the accident, in which John Fisher went overboard and has been missing ever since, will only be provided by the race organisers after a detailed debriefing with the Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag team.
