VOR: GREEN DRAGON LEG FIVE DAY 7 QFB: received 20.02.09 0608 GMT

by Ian Walker (skipper)

Heading East - a gamble or a calculated risk?

One thing has become clear over the last few legs is that it is hard for the Green Dragon to live with the big teams in terms of raw boatspeed instability conditions. This is undoubtedly due to our lighter keel weight, which limits our horsepower and there is nothing we can do about that now.

We are not letting our heads drop; it just means we have to find our edge elsewhere either through teamwork, reliability or strategy and tactics. To date, we have done pretty well at this, especially on leg one, where our more westerly route paid big dividends bringing us to the scoring gate in first position. The problem is that every time you separate from the fleet, you are taking a risk. Our opponents have the best skippers and navigators in the business, we all have the same weather information, and it is not often that the majority will be wrong. You can also be sure that all the teams will have studied every inch of these routes. Having said that, weather can be unpredictable and can change. The weather models are particularly unreliable close to the equator, where we will soon be sailing. There have to be some opportunities but there is no sense in gambling wildly, just room for calculated risks if and when the opportunity arises.

Right now, our navigator Wouter (Wouter Verbraak/NED) and I believe we have seen one of those opportunities and a more lifted breeze has enabled us to get east cheaply
(without giving too many miles away on the ‘miles to go scale’). Wouter is particularly skilled at meteorological routing and in all his and Ian Moore’s studies historically east is good both in the trade winds and the doldrums. The leaders couldn't get this far east as they weren't so lifted and they now seem to be fighting to get east. What is not at all clear right now is how the doldrums will play out and how we will get through the high-pressure zones into the Southern Ocean - this could have a huge bearing on the final outcome.

For now we are happy to have over 200 miles of leverage to the east of the leaders and whilst we have invested considerable miles to get here, we consider it a calculated risk rather than a gamble. If it works, of course we will be heroes, and if not, we will be the ones that took a gamble and failed. Either way, the next week will be far more interesting than if we just followed down their tracks losing miles on every position report. Right now I am happy with what we have done and we are starting to claw back some miles - long may that continue.

Volvo Ocean Race