PAINFUL PROGRESS
Tuesday 21 October 2008 16:00 GMT

By Cameron Kelleher
Green Dragon continue to lead the slow march to the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha via the glue pot that is the Doldrums.
Points mean prizes but the waypoint is still 470 miles and several sail changes, shifts and squalls away.
The fleet is spread out over a distance of more than 200 miles with the Dragon, PUMA and Ericsson 4 positioned to the west. The Telefonica boats along with Ericsson 3 and Team Russia occupy the middle ground while Delta Lloyd look to have been hung out to dry in the east.
At 1600 GMT, Green Dragon still headed a topsy-turvy leaderboard with a Distance to Leader (DTL) margin over PUMA of 22 miles, Ericsson 4 +25 and Telefonica Black +41 in the leading bunch. Then came Telefonica Blue +79, Ericsson 3 +85, Team Russia +101 and Delta Lloyd +143.
The pack has made a concerted decision to head south-west towards Fernando and has carried on this track for the past three hours since the previous Position Report.
The going is slow ranging from 8-9 knots of boat speed for the leading bunch to a paltry 5 for Delta Lloyd. Ericsson 4 has had the best 24 hour run – a pedestrian 189 miles – six miles more than PUMA.
Clearer picture
Having made significant gains since being dropped by fleet two days ago, Telefonica Black are now within reach of the top three.
As mentioned in Mark Chisnell’s all singing, all dancing TEN ZULU REPORT, following the cloak and dagger of the Doldrums, a clearer picture will start to emerge over the next 24 hours.
As the equator approaches, the focus for the navigators is to seek a slip road to the trade winds – the freeway to the race “re-start” – as Telefonica Black’s Media Crew Member Mikel Pasabant puts it.
"We are about 60 miles away from the southern trade winds, imagine how we are looking forward to catching them up," Pasabant says. "Then the race will start again, for sure. We are still in the leading group, fighting the second place, and anything may happen. Still a long, very long way to go.
"With these calm winds we always take advantage and rest or take care of the material, revising and so and so. I say rest because it is quite difficult to sleep due to the temperature: more than 45ºC."
PUMA’s stock, like the rest of the frontrunners, continue to rise and fall. "Rags to riches to rags, over and over again. The story of the world's largest Doldrums," according to skipper Ken Read.
"It is well documented that this is my first Doldrums crossing – and of course my first equator crossing. Yeah yeah, I know. The antics of "King Neptune" are not far away now. Casey Smith, Mickey Mueller and myself have that to look forward to.
"But, for the last couple of days or so it has felt like we would never get to those antics. Light air running – just getting going only to be smacked by a cloud that has no wind. Then a cloud with pressure gives you hope. And then a clearing that brings slapping sails. And it goes on, and on, and on.
'All for the end game'
"Early in the race we knew that this was going to be a major trap. The Doldrums as described by Capey (Andrew Cape – navigator) in his typical understated tones were "unusually large". Which is translated to, 'Holy crap, there isn't any wind forever!'"
"Actually what he described is that the Doldrums are exactly where they usually are, and aren't really that large, but there is a huge band of no wind to the north of the Doldrums making it seem like the worlds largest Doldrums. And he was right.
"We got to the west finally as well, although a little late. And hopefully this strategy will inevitably pay off for us over this last 60 miles. I will tell you it is no fun seeing a particular 3 hour boat position report and finding out that by sailing sideways on the race track to get to the west, you actually gained little to no ground toward the mark and lost 15+ miles to most of the other competitors each time we did it.
"All for the end game though. And in this case the end game is getting out of this bear trap called the "extended" Doldrums. And we don't even know for sure if this will work yet in the end! Did I mention that it is pretty hot as well?"
Ericsson 4 are reaping the rewards for their westerly gamble, according to bowman Ryan Godfrey. "We are slowly earning back the ground that we had sacrificed for a more westerly route several days ago," he says.
"So far, we have managed to avoid any major 'park ups' in the numerous windless zones that dominate this Doldrums area.
"We are looking forward to soon getting into the south east trade winds and increasing our speed towards Cape Town and few drinks with friends and family."
The subject of fashion has reared its, er, backside, on Ericsson 4. "The hot weather – although uncomfortable has brought its fair share of laughs, namely in the array of marginal clothing being sported," according the haute couture correspondent Guy Salter.
"There are some budding tailors onboard and the odd wannabe ballet dancer (in lycra skin tight leggings) but for me the prize of most marginal has to go to a Brazilian and his very short, shorts (they get shorter by the day!)."At least the Speedo's have not made an appearance yet, probably because the shoe horn needed to get into them has been left ashore. How about getting your crew shorts back on Torben? Please."

THE CAT STRETCHES
Thursday 16 October 2008 07:00 GMT

The trip through the Canary Islands has been a positive one for the race leaders but for Telefonica Black, it's likely been a couple of days they would rather forget.
Approaching the islands, Fernando Echavarri's men were right in the thick of it, within 20 miles of the leaders. But then the team made a break for the west of the Canaries and to this point, the gamble hasn't paid. The crew wakes up in last place this morning, a full 167 miles in arrears on the 0400 GMT position report.
Sistership Telefonica Blue meanwhile have followed the majority of the fleet to the east of the islands and are 120 miles back, despite having incurred a 12 hour penalty for stopping on the second night of the race to effect repairs.
At the front of the fleet, PUMA continues to slowly stretch away from Ericsson 4. The pair have been match racing since the first night in the Atlantic Ocean and Ken Read's team have converted a small trailing position into a tender lead over the past 48 hours.
Ericsson 4 crew member Ryan Godfrey describes the experience of such close racing: "It is a rather sobering thought for what lays ahead as the performance of all the yachts is very closely matched and I can see the remaining 35 000 miles as being full on boat on boat racing."
Meanwhile, Ericsson 3 remains in the hunt with the leaders, just 26 miles back on the 0400 GMT sked. The top three have some breathing room then, as Green Dragon is a further 50+ miles in arrears.

RUSSIA EMAIL:'SOME KIND OF A RACE ROUTINE HAS ALREADY SETTLED IN'
Wednesday 15 October 21:38
TEAM RUSSIA - Andreas Hanakamp (skipper)

Some kind of a race routine has already settled in. There is a constant change of faces on deck, every two hours two guys are coming up while two go down, eat and go into their bunk.
The four guys on deck are sailing the boat, one helming, two trimming and one grinding. Wouter and myself run our own watch, navigating and helping with maneuvers, whereas Wouter digs more into weather analysis and I do a share of driving.
We have the most pleasant sailing one can imagine. The breeze from the port or starboard quarter in the high teens and the boat sailing like on a track with smooth movements. Just the bow is throwing up some water and has a constant cloud of spray around, occasionally digging in and sending water back to the cockpit. It is warm outside and the water is more joy than anything.
The only thing that doesn’t make us happy is that we don’t find a way to close up to the leaders. Delta Lloyd and Telefonica Blue found an easterly route that was closed for the boats earlier through Gibraltar and caught up on the whole fleet through a shorter distance sailed.
We tried to position ourselves to get the fresh breeze first yesterday, which didn’t work out unfortunately. Now we are working on finding easy to work back every mile the pack is in front.
As it looks at the moment there are not too many opportunities until we get to the doldrums, key is to stay in touch.
The last position report has shown Green Dragon in the lead, revealing what a great job Ian Walker and his team are doing. They are seriously challenging the three big teams, fantastic.
Crouches are the must have on a sailboat. Mike has brought his due to the injury he has sustained two weeks ago. Nick found them and has cut them up to support our ram boot repair. At least they have been light weight aluminium, carbon would have been even better.

PUMA EMAIL:'THERE WON'T BE ANY TIGHTER RACING THAN WHAT WE AND E4 ARE HAVING RIGHT NOW'
Wednesday 15 October 03:54
PUMA – Ken Read (skipper)

I was just told that the TP 52 worlds are going on in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Not only did we just sail right past that island, but did so in the middle of a gybing duel with E4, with them about 2 boat lengths ahead of us at times.
No matter how close the TP 52 event is, my guess is that there won't be any tighter racing than the racing E4 and ourselves are having right now.
As they zig zagged all over the lot trying to prevent us from passing on the high or low side, they were effective. We let them gybe first (I was watching them move their stack with very cool night vision bino's). We decided to set up about a mile to leeward, trying to sail our own angles and see if we can boat speed them and finally break through. For sure there isn't much in it. Very fun though. Doesn't make for much sleep, that is for sure.
So, as I am sitting here at the nav station trying to dial in a good downwind mode for the guys on deck using our polars and the radar (watching our angles and speed to E4), I figured I would write about the action. Honestly, I thought the racing would be close but this is ridiculous!
On board action is still intense here at the gear stacking world championships! Ricky Deppe (media boy) sits and films us or just watches as his 10 friends bust their humps moving gear all over the craft depending on the mode we are in, the angle of sail and the wind speed. Just seems bizarre to watch him watch us. Good news though is he is getting some great stuff on board and sending it off daily. Should be in your living room soon I would guess.
Besides that, it is business as usual. Lousy food, smelly guys, getting fire hosed on deck and sleeping inside a base drum with someone relentlessly beating on it 24 hours a day. Nowhere would we rather be right now.

Kenny

DELTA LLOYD BOAT EMAILS: 'Sailing to the target'
Tuesday 14 October 12:10
Delta Lloyd - Ger O’Rourke - (skipper)

We are strategically positioning ourselves on the left of the fleet where we feel we may get to the high wind pressure before the fleet. We decided to gybe about 2 hrs before the fleet and head SSE to the beach in the hope of picking up some extra sea breeze, headed and gybing into 20 knots of target wind speed.
Currently 6th. Place in fleet with 40nm separating us from 5th & 46nm to first place, with approx 5,500nm to go its all up for grabs. Position 50nm north 32 degrees off the coast of Marrakech, West Africa, 15 knots boat speed in 15 knots top of mast wind.
The fleet seems to be sailing in a bunch have also decided to head the same direction & gybed after us as per the last sked.
Anyway the lads are happy as they reckon they may see some babes on the beach. Sailing to the target direction as fast as we can, watch changes are working well.
Life aboard is good as we all can not wait to get Delta Lloyd up to max speed in the 20 - 30 knots blast reaching we had as we departed Alicante. Freeze dried food is becoming comfortable with a la cart menu of chicken & more chicken, looking forward to the beef I hope is packed in Day 6 Food Bag. Water Making, charging, nav., weather routing, engine charging, running rigging, sail, cooking, bilging, media, all part of daily life aboard the good ship Delta Lloyd.
Media Crew Sander Pluijm on restricted sailing duties took water samples yesterday and we videoed him. I just hope we have not infringed any NOR media rule by helping him! He’s getting on well with crew with the usual banter. I have discovered the Dutch are a mad as the Irish!

Over & Out
Ger O’Rourke

ERICSSON 3 EMAIL:'We are not into gambling'
Tuesday 14 October 2008 03:25:00 GMT
Aksel Magdahl - navigator

Yesterday was quite disappointing, only covering 130 nautical miles in 24 hours. Of course we have covered more ground, but it has mostly been in a direction far off the course to Fernando de Noronha, or drifting backwards as we did for hours in the Strait of Gibraltar. We parked completely in the Strait, with no wind and plenty of 1-3 knots current against us just as we arrived there. Our track for this period is a comedy to look at. And of course the rest of the fleet had a bit of breeze and came right up to us, and in the end managed to squeeze just past us.
In the difficult breeze I was really frustrated as I could not get the weather data downloaded, but the system worked again after one of the guys gave the dome a good old kick. I assume the other boats have had some issues as well, so it is probably not that bad.
But plenty of positives as well! Everyone is really enjoying the racing, and giving their maximum effort to take us as fast forward as we can. People are more social now after getting a bit of sleep in the light airs, and the betting for our Cape Town ETA is on.
Since yesterday night we have been close to Puma, Telefónica Negro and Green Dragon. No one seemed very interested in splitting from the group until the Green Dragons gybed away to the south yesterday afternoon.
We are not into gambling at this stage as the potential losses in such light air areas are huge, so we stayed with Puma and Telefónica Black, just behind them.
At one stage we decided to use some of our luck account, and found a private cloud that gave us a couple of miles gain on Puma. They came back and passed us later though. And we passed Telefónica Negro a few boat lengths to weather a couple of hours ago. I assume they were not happy about it, so we stayed a bit high since to discourage any passing attempts. When we decided to gybe south later, they gybed on us and we needed another two gybes to shake them free.
No time to rest for the navigators yet, as we are currently making the big choices for the Northern Atlantic. We need to decide on whether to go west of the Canary Islands to get the shift in wind direction, or closer to Africa to look for pressure if there is any. That might involve going between the islands, which provides for interesting navigation with local wind accelerations and risky wind shadows. We also watch the development in the Doldrums, which we will enter in five days time.