Volvo Fleet Pummeled

Those who felt the Volvo Ocean Race would suffer a lack of drama for skipping the bulk of the Southern Ocean have to be eating their words right about now. After a nail-biter of a finish in Singapore, which saw Bouwe Bekking’s Telefónica Blue successfully navigate the potholes to take the leg win, the fleet sailed the in-port race two weeks ago — won handily by Torben Grael’s Ericsson 4. Then, a week later, the race resumed, destination: Qingdao — 2,500 miles directly upwind. For the ensuing 8.5 days, it’s been a slog — first in hot, humid conditions through poorly-charted waters with precipitous shoals, now with ever-colder temperatures that will soon be plunging into the freezing range. It’s already resulted in one retirement — Fernando Echavarri’s Telefónica Black — and forced three other boats to take shelter to affect repairs in the Philippines as the fleet has been battered by breeze in excess of 50 knots at times during the last four days.

In the Luzon Strait north of Manila, Ken Read’s Puma, Roberto Bérmudez de Castro’s Delta Lloyd and Ian Walker’s Green Dragon were all forced to take shelter and anchor to repair damage. For the Dragon crew, the damage actually started before the worst of the weather when the boat’s forestay broke unexpectedly. Then a couple days later in the thick of the breeze, one of their forward ring frames broke before detaching itself from the hull. Puma broke their boom, which has now been replaced by three separate purchase systems for adjustment — one of which has claimed 30% of one of Read’s fingers. Delta Lloyd was forced to take a break to repair a blown-out mainsail.

Now the fleet is beating up Taiwan’s east coast, with leg leader Telefónica Blue some 600 miles from Qingdao, sailing with a couple knots of current that’s going in their direction, against 35 knots of breeze. We’re pretty sure there’ll be some more horror stories to come out of this leg and there are plenty we don’t have room for. So check out www.volvooceanrace.org for more.