Some of you may already know that I am a sailing nut and follow a few things in the sailing world religiously. One of these things is the Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread 'Round the World Race). I've posted previously about this 10-leg race around the world that just started in the Spanish Med city of Alicante and will end next June in St. Petersburg, Russia.
This first leg takes them from Alicante to Cape Town, South Africa, except rather than going out the Med and down the African coast, they have to sail around Fernando de Noronha, which is an archipelago off the Brazilian coast! That means that to get through the 'scoring gate' they have to sail through the Doldrums, the infamous zone of dead air that can park sailboats for days at a time. Back before boats had motors, satellite phones, freeze-dried food, and fresh-water making capabilities, the Doldrums struck fear in the hearts of the world's mariners. Luckily for these guys, it's now just a matter of trying to get through them the fastest.
But the race is spectacular. The Volvo 70's are marvels of technology, with canting keels, twin daggerboards, and radical power to weight ratios. They are built to fly and most people expect the 24-hour monohull record to be broken more than once during this race. On Saturday, the boats blasted out of Alicante at over 20 knots and have been going flat out, 24-hours a day, since the start (and will do so until they arrive in Cape Town around November 3-4).
This edition of the race features some unorthodox leg finishes in places like Singapore, China and India and omits some of the traditional stops in places like Australia and New Zealand. It really is an amazing event and the latest technology on the website gives anyone the ability to follow it with stunning detail (check out the 3-D raceviewer).
I am rooting for the Puma team with American skipper, Ken Read. Their boat, il Monstro, has been doing well so far in the leg, battling it out with Ericsson 4, another of the pre-race favorites. The race is so close between these two that they actually engaged in a gybing duel in the middle of the night last night as they passed the Canary Islands to leeward--like they were in an inshore match race or something--after already sailing almost 1,000 nm. A new feature this year is the ability for a boat to go into "stealth" mode, effectively hiding themselves from the fleet for 12 hours by shutting off all their satellite and GPS data. The Green Dragon team, a bit of an underdog who has been holding her own so far this leg, just pushed the stealth button last night. It will be interesting to see where she pops up in 12 hours...
Okay--enough indulgence for now. I'll end this post with a beautiful shot of il Monstro blasting at 20+ knots shortly after the start. Isn't she beautiful?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
And they're off!
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3 comments:
So do they have sleeping quarters? I wonder what the inside of one of these racers looks like:)
You and Graigg both would have been sailors had you lived 200 or so years ago. Thank goodness for Liz and I we don't....
I think soon the boats are literally going to start flying. That's insane that they started the stealth rule where you can turn all of your instruments off. It totally adds a whole new dimension to the game I think. Yeah Fernando de Noronha is a beautiful archipelago. It's rumored there is the best scuba diving in all of Brazil there. I would love to go there but, well, it's a bit isolated. That would still be a little nerve racking to have to sail through the doldrums.
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