Ainhoa Sanchez - VOR
Imagine
this scene … You and the ladies aboard Team SCA are sailing merrily along at
about 30 knots in the Southern Ocean aboard a sleek 65-foot sailboat at night. The wind is howling at a steady 35 knots, the
sails banging and popping as if angrily alive, as you surf giant 30-foot waves
rolling north from frozen Antarctica . The water is a bone-chilling eight
degrees. Every time the boat hits the
bottom of a wave, a fire hose wall of water comes crashing over the bow and
envelops the whole boat as if under water.
Everybody on deck is wearing survival gear and is strapped in so they
don’t get washed overboard. And if that
isn’t scary enough, you are entering
Point
Nemo, the most isolated area of the planet earth, named after the submarine
captain in Jules Verne’s classic novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the
Sea". You are 1,670 miles from
three coast lines: Ducie Island to the north, an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Islands ;
Motu Nui to the northeast, a tiny islet off Chile ’s
Easter Island; and frigid Maher
Island
Anna-Lena Elled - SCA
And then comes the Chinese gybe,
otherwise known as the "death roll".
Abby Ehler was working in the
pit aboard SCA when it all suddenly happened, and here is her story.
Anna-Lena Elled - SCA
"It was in the middle of
the night and pitch black. We … got too
much pressure on the helm, a little bit too high on the wind angle and you
start to lose control over the boat and it wipes out and turns to windward.
Matt Knighton - Abu Dhabi
"That's basically what
started the chain of events. We had a wipe out and it took us a little time to
recover, we eased the front sail and it was flapping a lot and as a result all
the flapping caused the sail to explode… the whole sail was in the water acting
as an anchor."
Armory Ross - Alvimedica
This sailing stuff can get confusing, especially with all the terminology. So, I'm going to describe what happened.
Matt Knighton - Abu Dhabi
The wind is blowing hard off the right side of the bow and your sails are on the left side of the boat. You are being blown over, so you stack all of your gear – above and below deck – on the right side, including the canting keel which weighs several tons and is positioned all the way to the right. The person at the helm keeps inching the boat's bow toward the wind, trying to maximize speed. Suddenly you get hit by a big wave from the left, or the wind shifts, and the helmsman loses control. The boat jybes and the sails are now on the wrong side of the boat and usually in the water, along with all the gear, and the wind keeps the boat pinned, making it impossible to steer.
Armory Ross - Alvimedica
The crew is also on the wrong side and they must climb a slick fiberglass wall covered in tangled equipment so they can get to the lines that control the sails, all of which are now above their heads, and release them. Meanwhile, the keel motor must be turned on and the keel must be moved to the opposite side to pull the boat back upright.
Yann Riou - Dongfeng
All of this takes a long time, and the entire crew is in a state of panic as the ocean tries to suck the boat under the waves and they fight to get to the high side.
Yann Riou - Dongfeng
Broken boats are a big part of
the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) and near misses a big part of the lore. This is why many of the sailors were actually quite angry when the start from New
Zealand was delayed for two days in order to
avoid Cyclone Pam. These boys and girls really
like to dance along the razors edge.
Yann Riou - Dongfeng
A few days after SCA almost
turned over into its watery grave, their radar broke loose, and then their
electronic systems stopped working, leaving them sailing in the dark. The next day, while heading downwind in
45-knots of wind, they executed a controlled gybe and their J3 sail ripped
apart.
Anna-Lena Elled - SCA
And just when it seemed like it
couldn’t get any crazier, the sailing gods threw
them a few more curves.
Anna-Lena Elled - SCA
Anna-Lena
Elled described another day from hell.
"As
is so often the case, when you least expect something to happen it does and –
BOOM! – we hit something with the port rudder. The
boat turned around, tacked and capsized, and once again, we were on our side. A few hours later we had
one more hit, this time in the keel – and before sunset another one. What are
the odds?”
MAPFRE and overall leader
Dongfeng also got to practice their Chinese gybe skills in the daylight. And a few days later, on their harrowing approach
to Cape Horn, at the Southern tip of South America ,
Dongfeng’s mast snapped without warning while they were barreling along at 25
knots at night, the broken mast section and main sail flapping above their
heads like a loaded gun. They were forced to quit the race and motor to Ushuaia , Argentina
where the boat could be transported to Brazil
Rick Tomlinson - VOR
Rick Tomlinson - VOR
And it’s not just boats that
break, the sailors do too.
We tend to think of Volvo sailors
as grizzled old seafarers, but for the first three days of the race, the sea
state was like an endless roller coaster, and almost everyone in the fleet was
constantly seasick and unable to keep down any food.
Annie Lush, aboard SCA got
launched from the aft side of the cockpit and got wedged into the comms cage. Luckily, the tether on her harness prevented
her from getting washed overboard. But she
couldn’t sit after that and spent the rest of the voyage eating pain killers.
Martin Strömberg on Dongfeng,
came really close to losing a few fingers when his hand got stuck in a block
while trying to remove a knot on a rope.
He had trouble using his right hand the rest of the race.
In the end, it was another photo
finish with veteran skipper Ian Walker leading Abu Dhabi to victory. After 7,200 miles of extreme sailing, the top
four boats finished within 55 minutes of one another, with a battered but unbowed Team SCA limping into Itajaí
harbor two days later.
Ainhoa Sanchez - VOR
Next Stop –
Newport , Rhode
Island
| Leg 1 |
Leg 2 |
Leg 3 |
Leg 4 |
Leg 5 |
Overall |
|
| 1 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
9 |
|
| Alvimedica |
5 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
19 |
| Brunel |
3 |
1 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
18 |
| Dongfeng |
2 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
DNF-8 |
16 |
| MAPFRE |
7 |
4 |
4 |
1 |
2 |
18 |
| SCA |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
29 |
| Vestas Wind |
4 |
DNF-8 |
DNS-8 |
DNS-8 |
DNS-8 |
36 |
