And they're off...

[dazie]

The 2008-2009 Volvo Ocean Race started this morning (afternoon) from Alicante, Spain.

*sigh*  Without me. 

Oh well- I'll go next time. 

Anyway- if anyone is interested, I'm rooting for:

Team Russia - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/teams/russia-team/
Green Dragon - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/teams/green-dragon-team/
Delta Lloyd - http://www.volvooceanrace.org/teams/delta-lloyd/

Cuz I know people on them.  Actually, I know people associated with most of the teams, but I actually LIKE people with those teams I listed.

[dazie]

Don't worry- I won't bore you with every minute detail, but I do love this boat.  Co sponsored by Irish and Chinese businesses, it carries a shamrock AND a dragon. 

Plus- this is just a really cool picture.  20+ knots at the start in a big swell.  Lifting the boats out of the water and slamming them back down right from the get go.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[dazie]

This made me laugh so hard I nearly choked.  An email from one of the guys on "Kosatka" (<-- Killer Whale, the name of the Team Russia boat)

Spoons at Dawn

20 October, 2008 Blog from Mark Covell - Team Russia's 'big man reporting from a small space in a huge sea'
The winds are getting lighter the man smells are getting stronger and will to eat up the sea miles is certainly not fading away. In my blogs I have tried to bring you the feelings from onboard not just the A,B & Cs of daily life on this V70. Here are some ongoing themes from life above and below deck.

Food is obviously an ongoing topic. The preparation is simple, boil water, tip freeze-dried food into eski, add water and re-hydrate. Then serve up with a large ladle, doing your best impression of every prison film you have ever seen. I like to get a good splat in the food bowl before I lean over to the bemused crewman and say in hushed voice "It's tonight, we're breaking out tonight, we're getting out.... You coming?" It gets the same strange look every time.

The flavours range from bland to blander. The all time favorite is the eagerly anticipated Chicken & Mushroom Thai Curry. The big benefit of this dish is for once the mushrooms actually look like mushrooms. The food itself can't provide everything that a growing Volvo Ocean sailor needs to keep fit and healthy, so let me introduce the second biggest topic outside the subject of winning a yacht race, supplements.

Supplements come in all shapes and disguises. The fish oil tablet repeats on you all day until it's time to take another one. The rest of the pills and powered dinks just give you wind. Fluctuant flatulence emitting from the sleeping bears below can often drown the sound of creaking sheets, easing on the winches above deck. If only we could harness the power to ease us through the doldrums?

Needing a breath of fresh air myself from my own cramped space I just put my head up out of the hatch and ask for inspiration about the next biggest topic discussed. Stig impressively suggested that Politics and philosophy got the biggest airtime on his watch.... Deep. But with out doubt it's the constant question of "Who has nicked my spoon?" got the vote. In the effort to keep the weight down someone thought we only needed one spoon per person and three spare spoons to get us to Cape Town in good shape. After only three days at seas we were four spoons down. Now if you think this is a pretty unimportant thing to worry about on the VOLVO OCEAN RACE - LIFE AT THE EXTREME, you must remember that we only have one bowl and one spoon each. Lose your spoon, and life can get pretty extreme.

[Gamplayerx]

It's a shame they can't make spoons out of some sort of light weight material.  Like, say, plastic.  Or, if they want to be more green, wood.

[dazie]

The team I worked for cut the handles off their toothbrushes to save weight.  They also didn't paint the entire boat, which saved about 600lbs.  The thing I found gross was they took half as many sleeping bags as people, so you had to share a sleeping bag.  Ick.

The sails and random crap they do get to take weigh about a ton and a half, and every time they shift sails they have to move it all.  Also ick.

[dazie]

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/images/Assets/VOR10317_600x400.jpg

The guy on the left of the pic is the baddest ass bad ass I've ever met.  When he skippered "my" boat they were going around Cape Horn (southern tip of South America, just north of Antarctica) and the keel got a bunch of kelp wrapped around it, which was slowing the boat down.  They tried to get if off by backing the boat (not an easy trick in a sailboat) but it didn't work.

So Neal stripped down to his birthday suit, put a knife in his mouth and jumped into the Southern Ocean.  He swam down under the boat and cut the kelp off.

BAD.
ASS.

[grace]

The team I worked for cut the handles off their toothbrushes to save weight.  They also didn't paint the entire boat, which saved about 600lbs.  The thing I found gross was they took half as many sleeping bags as people, so you had to share a sleeping bag.  Ick.

The sails and random crap they do get to take weigh about a ton and a half, and every time they shift sails they have to move it all.  Also ick.

never share your spoon or bed bag....you will end up with noops & deb-gab.

[dazie]

This is kind of huge.  600 miles in 24 hours isn't much for an automobile or an airplane, but consider that it was a SAILBOAT that did it- averaging over 25 knots per hour (about 28-30 mph per hour) and half of the time was pitch black...

Wednesday 29 October 2008 20:00 GMT - Updated at 07:00 GMT, 30 October

By Cameron Kelleher

Ericsson 4 broke through the 600-mile barrier as their historic run continued with the log reaching 602.66 nautical miles at 18:54 GMT.

The record must now be ratified by ISAF and the World Sailing Speed Record Council. That is likely to happen a week after the fleet's arrival in Cape Town, which, at the going rate, is predicted as Monday 3rd November.

The new mark established by Torben Grael's men translates into an average speed of 25.11 knots, according to the telemetry received from the boat at Race Headquarters.

It eclipsed the previous best 24-hour run for a racing monohull of 562.96 miles set by Sebastian Josse and the crew of ABN AMRO TWO on the second leg of the 2005-06 race from Cape Town to Melbourne. Ericsson 4 added nearly 40 miles to that figure.

Grael and his crew had been pushing the boat hard for well over 24 hours, first toppling the previous mark at 03:55 GMT with a run of 566.57 miles. They raised the bar repeatedly and by 13:00 GMT, 593 miles were on the board as the magical 600-mark grew nearer. By 14:25, they had clocked 594.23 as they moved onwards and upwards. Then came Grael's holy grail.

The achievement is all the more credible given that Ericsson 4 have been sailing a man down since dropping off Tony Mutter, one of their drivers, at the Cape Verde Islands.

Drained by the experience, Grael is not about to get too carried away with the record when the serious business of being first to Cape Town remains top of the to-do list.

The conditions were not ideal given the sea state overnight. Winds approaching 40 knots are one thing, boisterous seas of eight metres in pitch darkness quite another. Shattered records, shattered bodies it seems.
...

"Conditions were marginal, especially during the night. It was no fun at all. The problem was the waves, especially during the middle of the night as there is no moon and it is very difficult to read them so the boat has been jumping about.

"We have been very much on the edge, if we had an easier sea state we could have gone faster."

...

"All the boys look really drained - sleep is not the easiest on E4, I can only describe the motion as I would imagine re-entry on the Space shuttle is like. Everything is bouncing - including every cell in our bodies and the mundane tasks are near impossible."

[grace]

one driver down....why did they drop "mutter" off ? just curious. waves that fierce would not be fun at night...

[dazie]

He had an infected knee.  They drained it and did a little surgery on it on the boat, but decided it was just too dangerous for him to stay aboard, even with the antibiotics they have.  They dropped him off in the Canary Islands I think, about a week ago.

[grace]

He had an infected knee.  They drained it and did a little surgery on it on the boat, but decided it was just too dangerous for him to stay aboard, even with the antibiotics they have.  They dropped him off in the Canary Islands I think, about a week ago.

i can't imagine what a persons knees would feel like after a trip like that... i've been in 12ft seas once, for 4-5 hrs. that was enough, i was scared shitless.

[dazie]

My friend Richard is on one of the other boats.  This is his third VOR, so his third time 'round. He said in the daily boat email that the night Ericsson 4 made that record was the worst watch he'd ever had.  His boat got caught with the wrong sail up and really had no chance to get it down in the weather and seas they hit.  He said something like they had to keep going, and would either survive or die.  *lol*

[grace]

My friend Richard is on one of the other boats.  This is his third VOR, so his third time 'round. He said in the daily boat email that the night Ericsson 4 made that record was the worst watch he'd ever had.  His boat got caught with the wrong sail up and really had no chance to get it down in the weather and seas they hit.  He said something like they had to keep going, and would either survive or die.  *lol*

yeah ....fuck that-- do or die shit

[BigDun]

The one time my wife and I took a cruise, it was on a small (by today's standards minuscule) ship that encountered some big waves one night (> 15 ft). The waves were big enough to make traversing the halls in the upper decks, where our stateroom was, very difficult. You had to hold onto the hallway's handrails to make it down the hall.

That night we went to the dance room that was located somewhere below water line of the boat where the effects of the high seas where much less pronounced. It was still some of the most surreal and funky dancing I have ever done. We were jamming to a mix of house and trance music, all the time alternating between jumping three feet in the air with no effort to feeling like you are glued to the dance floor. It was awesome. Imagine dancing on an elevator that was accelerating at an insanely intense rate and reversed its movement every 10 seconds.

[grace]

cruz ships feel much like an airline to me, cattle call stuff. the scenery is usually beautiful, but it feels like entrapment.

[dazie]

All 8 boats made it to Cape Town safely.  Yay!  Nobody died or broke to the point where they had to motor in.

One of the teams, though, nosedived into a wave and snapped off the bowsprit.  (see the pics-  the first one is how the front end of the boat is supposed to look, the second is how Telefonica looked coming in to Cape Town)

These boats are made of kevlar.  Takes a hell of a lot to break one like that.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[grace]

All 8 boats made it to Cape Town safely.  Yay!  Nobody died or broke to the point where they had to motor in.

One of the teams, though, nosedived into a wave and snapped off the bowsprit.  (see the pics-  the first one is how the front end of the boat is supposed to look, the second is how Telefonica looked coming in to Cape Town)

These boats are made of kevlar.  Takes a hell of a lot to break one like that.

now that deserves a "we did it"...........

[Bennyhana]

All 8 boats made it to Cape Town safely.  Yay!  Nobody died or broke to the point where they had to motor in.

One of the teams, though, nosedived into a wave and snapped off the bowsprit.  (see the pics-  the first one is how the front end of the boat is supposed to look, the second is how Telefonica looked coming in to Cape Town)

These boats are made of kevlar.  Takes a hell of a lot to break one like that.

now that deserves a "we did it"...........

Unless you are an air molecule that actually traveled around the sail, you can't say "We."

Just because you sat your lazy ass on a boat while being blown around doesn't mean you get to claim victory.

[grace]

All 8 boats made it to Cape Town safely.  Yay!  Nobody died or broke to the point where they had to motor in.

One of the teams, though, nosedived into a wave and snapped off the bowsprit.  (see the pics-  the first one is how the front end of the boat is supposed to look, the second is how Telefonica looked coming in to Cape Town)

These boats are made of kevlar.  Takes a hell of a lot to break one like that.

now that deserves a "we did it"...........

Unless you are an air molecule that actually traveled around the sail, you can't say "We."

Just because you sat your lazy ass on a boat while being blown around doesn't mean you get to claim victory.

your standards suck...f... you benny 

[dazie]

Pirates.  Oh joy.

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2008/november/PIRACY-CT/index.aspx

"Can we have the icebergs back?" joked Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Telefonica Blue. It's not a common request, but then the challenges of the new route are not particularly common either.

Instead of dodging icebergs and braving Southern Ocean storms, the crews lining up for the forthcoming leg to Cochin, India - and indeed the two further trips through Asia after that - are taking measures to ensure the threats of piracy and collisions with small unlit fishing vessels are minimised...

[grace]

Pirates.  Oh joy.

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2008/november/PIRACY-CT/index.aspx

"Can we have the icebergs back?" joked Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Telefonica Blue. It's not a common request, but then the challenges of the new route are not particularly common either.

Instead of dodging icebergs and braving Southern Ocean storms, the crews lining up for the forthcoming leg to Cochin, India - and indeed the two further trips through Asia after that - are taking measures to ensure the threats of piracy and collisions with small unlit fishing vessels are minimised...

i wonder if they will carry firearms...i would.

[Bennyhana]

Pirates.  Oh joy.

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2008/november/PIRACY-CT/index.aspx

"Can we have the icebergs back?" joked Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Telefonica Blue. It's not a common request, but then the challenges of the new route are not particularly common either.

Instead of dodging icebergs and braving Southern Ocean storms, the crews lining up for the forthcoming leg to Cochin, India - and indeed the two further trips through Asia after that - are taking measures to ensure the threats of piracy and collisions with small unlit fishing vessels are minimised...

i wonder if they will carry firearms...i would.

you think people who chop their toothbrushes in half to save weight would have something as heavy as a gun on board?  They're going to fight the pirates with carbon fiber spears.

[dazie]

*snicker*  That's funny- cuz that's what I was thinking too, about the weight of the guns.

I doubt they have anything more than a flare gun on board, but they do have warships available- there's some new system that transmits the yachts' positions to some company who lets the warships in the area know where they are.  If something goes wrong, the navy will be there asap.

Seems like if I were being boarded by pirates, the navy couldn't get there fast enough, but the race people seem to think it's a good idea.  *shrug*

[grace]

Pirates.  Oh joy.

http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/article/2008/november/PIRACY-CT/index.aspx

"Can we have the icebergs back?" joked Bouwe Bekking, the skipper of Telefonica Blue. It's not a common request, but then the challenges of the new route are not particularly common either.

Instead of dodging icebergs and braving Southern Ocean storms, the crews lining up for the forthcoming leg to Cochin, India - and indeed the two further trips through Asia after that - are taking measures to ensure the threats of piracy and collisions with small unlit fishing vessels are minimised...

i wonder if they will carry firearms...i would.

you think people who chop their toothbrushes in half to save weight would have something as heavy as a gun on board?  They're going to fight the pirates with carbon fiber spears.

hey...diet a little and afford the weight of a pocket piece.

[dazie]

From the Green Dragon team:

Conditions have progressively worsened on board as the Southern Ocean makes its presence felt. Ian Walker's Green Dragon took the brunt of it. "I was just getting my waterproofs on down below when there was a huge bang and the boat went into an involuntary Chinese gybe," Walker reported.

"You might think this is alright for a boat with such strong Chinese connections but a Chinese gybe is what we all fear most as it is when the boat crash gybes and leaves you on your side with everything including the keel on the wrong side.

"As the mainsail hit the weather runners, water started pouring in down below through the ventilation hatches due to the side decks now being underwater but the boat miraculously turned back the right way, gybed back and righted itself.

"The steering blocks had sheared away leaving Neal (McDonald) with no steerage on the weather wheel. As the boat speared out of control Anthony Merrington managed to grab the leeward wheel just in time and straighten us up.

"Everyone was harnessed on and everything secure so no harm was done. Fortunately the only real cost was perhaps 5-10 miles and we are now back up and running with another bar story to tell."