The low comes from behind. And it's huge. The teams in the Volvo Ocean Race can expect hair-raising conditions over the next 24 hours. On the fourth day of the third leg, the navigators and their crews are expecting the heavy storm approaching from the west to hit them with winds gusting up to 55 knots. All crews have prepared themselves and their boats for the brutal conditions. "The wind will come very quickly now. It's going to be tough, very tough," said experienced Dongfeng skipper Charles Caudrelier in an interview at midday. "We won't be racing for a few hours. We will still sail fast, but our top priority will be to protect the crew and the boat. Our goal is clear: we don't want to break anything."
Bianca Cook from New Zealand on board Dee Caffari's "Turn the Tide on Plastic" expressed similar sentiments. The very experienced offshore sailor, who has sailed 70,000 miles, said: "We positioned ourselves north of the rest of the fleet because we didn't want to end up in the middle of the deep with no options." The north-south separation between Caffari's team in the north and leader Dongfeng in the south was around 230 nautical miles at midday on Wednesday. The animation (see above) clearly shows Caffari's team trying to escape the force of the storm. Bianca Cook said: "We are expecting winds between 45 and 55 knots. It will be crucial to get the reefs in before the low hits us." Cook does not believe that her team will automatically be disadvantaged by the very northerly and therefore theoretically longer course: "We are not shooting ourselves in the foot, have full confidence in our navigator and believe that we may be able to sail north faster than the others in the middle of the storm." In other words, Caffari's team hope that they will have to "step on the brakes" less than the crews to the south. Cook described the expected conditions as a "weather bomb".
On the fourth day of the stage, Charles Caudrelier's Donfeng Race Team continued to lead the stage ahead of the Spanish team Mapfre and the Dutch team AkzoNobel. The Dongfeng Race Team had already crossed the 42nd parallel! In the early hours of Wednesday afternoon, the Vestas 11th Hours Racing and Brunel teams were in fourth and fifth place, around 19 and 26 nautical miles behind Dongfeng. 40 nautical miles behind Dongfeng, David Witt's team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag had positioned itself slightly north of the approaching storm, which is now expected to hit the boat flying the Hong Kong flag first.
On "Mapfre", Spanish skipper Xabi Fernandez was emphatically relaxed: "It will be rough, but it will also be fun." "Vestas" navigator Simon "Sifi" Fisher chose more drastic words: "It feels like we're manning the battle stations and preparing for war."
