10:12 AM Mon 8 Jun 2009 GMT
Volvo Ocean Race Leg 8, latest news from the boats.
Onboard the Dragon its been a good 24 hours, no sleep for the Delta Lloyd crew, no sleep either on Ericsson 3 where the action has been fast and furious. On telefonica Black the day has been great.
GREEN DRAGON LEG EIGHT DAY 3 QFB: received 8.06.09 0732 GMT
I am only 60 miles from my house in Warsash right now, which is making me homesick! Nine months away from home so far, so I guess I can last another three weeks until the end of the race.
It has been a very good 24 hours for the Dragon as we are leading the fleet down the Channel. We continued to keep as far south as we could with a series of gybes throughout yesterday.
Every time we went south we got more wind and gained on those around us. The problem was that it was pushing us towards the Channel Islands where the strongest tides in the Channel exist and where we were due to arrive at the worst possible time.
It was because of this that the fleet stayed north of Alderney in less foul current, but the wind was too good for us to give up and we stayed south and took on the 'Alderney Race'.
Telef?nica Black had been covering us all day, but we managed to use the island to split away from them. Despite fighting six knots of current, we managed to get to the French coast and we gybed down the rocks to sneak around with a few miles of advantage.
It was a highlight of the race, rock hopping at night in fierce current, trying to steal every boat length we could on the fleet. Since then, it has not gone quite as well, as we paid a small price for being too close to the Cherbourg peninsula after Cap de la Hague. It was a difficult dilemma - stay close to the land to stay in less current but run the risk by of losing your wind under the land. The important thing is we are out and clear now, the wind has filled in and we are neck and neck with Telef?nica Black with most of the fleet 10 miles behind.
Onboard life is easy as we are sailing in flat water, but sleep is problematic with so much decision making and manoeuvring. I was up 12 hours straight all last night so today I intend to catch up on sleep in preparation for more fun and games in the Dover Straits tonight.
Ian Walker - skipper
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DELTA LLOYD LEG EIGHT DAY 3 QFB: received 08.06.09 0751 GMT
From the gunshot at the start, this leg has been a real close boat to boat fight and it will probably stay that way till the finish line.
All Volvo 70s can see each other with the naked eye. Watch leader and five-time Volvo veteran Stu Wilson says it's always like this at the end of the race. The big differences in between the boats and teams are not that big anymore. Everybody ends eventually up in the same corner. All the sails look alike, the teams are all as experienced, the big gaps in training have closed and the crew all know the boats and each other very well. All teams and boats are optimised, so the differences are really small in the end. And of course the final legs are all simply a bit shorter.
So that makes it a lot harder for the boats to get away from the fleet, especially in a coastal leg like this one. So that's why we are racing in really close order to Rotterdam.
With no sleep for the boys due to all the sail changes and manoeuvres. Really close battles are fought and everybody is extremely focused because every mistake costs miles and that's going to cost you the leg.
And so the fleet is racing to Rotterdam, where we are going to have a great event on the coast of Hoek van Holland. We still don't have an accurate ETA, but is looks like we are going to be there between 0800 and 2000 tomorrow. Hopefully by the end of the day we have a more accurate number.
Sander Pluijm - MCM
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TELEF?NICA BLACK LEG EIGHT DAY 2 QFB: received 07.06.09 2214 GMT
What a great day for us on Telef?nica Black..! 'The Blackies' are in the lead after a good strategic move and really good crew work. Among other things we survived with 42 knots of wind having our biggest gennaker flying, an act of balance.
Our strategy was to stay south in the English Channel, prognosis indicated more wind there, and we passed close south of Bishop Rock on Scilly Isles, this morning. Green Dragon did the same and was actually 17 nm ahead of us at Scilly. After Scilly, Dragon went more north and we stayed south. When we met later in the day we were ahead of them, what a surprise!
All the other boats, all ahead of us at Fastnet Rock, went north of Scilly and had very little breeze along the English coast. Good for us!
In the afternoon we could see the whole fleet as they popped up, one by one, on the horizon behind us. They had been forced to take a bad gybe away from England to reach our more favourable area further south, closer to France.
Right now we are in a close battle with Dragon and Ericsson 3, both very close behind. Every time we gybe to port, in the light westerly, we soon lose the wind. We gybe back to starboard, going south east, and soon we find the wonderful power that makes us move over the ocean.
Yesterday it all started with a bit of shock for us on Telef?nica Black. After a wonderful stay in Volvo Ocean Race fanatical Galway, we were met by an ice cold, fresh north easterly wind at the start line. A big contrast to the last hot, sunny week in town!
Fernando Ech?varri made a brilliant start, full speed over the line with our A3 gennaker. But the joy did not last long. Soon we were rolled by the whole fleet as our Achilles heel again started hurting. Our downwind, running speed in 20 knots plus is not good.
In the very beautiful and spectacular area just west of Blasket Sound, we made a shortcut inside some islands. That move put us closer to the other boats, all more offshore. Still we had to accept a last place around Fastnet Rock, 37 minutes behind leading Dragon who had sailed superb race since the start.
Looks light and tricky during the coming night with a good chance of a compression of the fleet. Our old low is dying and a new fresh low is being delivered from the Atlantic to give as an upwind ride to Holland. See you there!
All the best
Roger Nilson - navigator
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ERICSSON 3 LEG EIGHT DAY 2 QFB: received 07.06.09 2114 GMT
The first 24 hours of this leg has really been a trip, showing every side of sailing and making it very obvious what it takes to be a competitive crew member in this race.
We have had winds up to 43 knots and waves that made the boat take off in surfs over 30 knots and dive into the next coming wall of water with fierce power. After a heavy and extremely wet reach around the Fastnet Rock in complete darkness, we now have very calm conditions in the English Channel.
But the racing is still intense; we are eye to eye with all the boats in the fleet.
There have been a lot of changes on the scoreboard so far, for example Telef?nica Black went from last to first. Going VMG downwind here makes it very important to get the shifts right and gybe in the right moment. And if you gamble and break away from the fleet, everything can happen. For the Spanish on Telef?nica Black it turned out well this time. Let's see what happens the coming hours.
These last short legs may look like nothing knowing that we have been on one leg for around 44 days, but now the setup and the mindset are completely different. The first 24 hours most of us have only slept for two hours, some of us nothing. In the heavy airs and with the close-to-shore-racing you always have to be ready for a gybe or a sail change.
Everyone is always on standby. Resting has to wait until Marstrand.
The race is coming to its end and we start to feel it onboard. It was boring to leave Galway with all its charm and the fantastic support and interest from everyone, it was just a great stopover. If I do this race again I have nothing against coming back to this town, even though, as a taxi driver said the other day, 'you can be quite sure the rain will be flooding down then, since you got so lucky this time.'
Gustav Morin - MCM
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by Various Volvo Ocean Race competitors
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