Ericsson 3 with a 300 mile lead over the fleet, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Gustav Morin/Ericsson 3/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Gustav Morin
Actually we have already been in a storm. Well, not storm, but at least constantly in 30 knots for hours and hours. But the wind is not the problem. It is the wave state.
We have now reached the centre of the low pressure and the wind has stopped blowing. We have tacked to get out of here and are now bumping around in a nasty sea state, waiting for the 30 knots to come back. We are pretty fed up with sailing upwind or bumpy reaching. It is a pain with the way the boat is moving and the constant spray.
‘I am fed up with this fire hosing’, Mange Olsson was yelling when he came down in the darkness from last watch. ‘It's not fun to sail these boats any more. Why can't we have shields like on the Open 60s? How fun is it to stand in a constant fire hose for four hours three times a day? You get exhausted!’
But the bumping is worse. Things are breaking.
Ericsson 3, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Gustav Morin/Ericsson 3/Volvo Ocean Race.
We have a major with our diesel tanks and for Arve Roaas and Martin Stromberg and me; the bunks are also starting to become an issue. Yesterday Arve fell down from the port one. He is staying in the one most forward and on the ‘Second floor’. It's a tricky fix, so it ended up with me sleeping on my beanbag.
Tonight we had the same problem, but on the starboard side. Before I went to sleep on the ‘first floor’, I thought about the risks. The pipes on Arve’s bunk was bending badly in the waves, but I thought that they would just keep bending and not break since it's aluminium. More worrying was the noise from the attachment in the roof. I tried to fit in under it just so the pipes were not going to hit me anywhere sensitive.
When I finally fell asleep, after getting use to jumping up and down in the bunk from the slamming, I still had a bad feeling.
A couple of hours later I woke up from a snapping noise and from being totally squeezed. The attachment in the roof snapped in a big wave. But I got away just fine, no bones broken. But now it seems like we have to do some bunk sharing. Or I sleep on my beanbag.
Volvo Ocean Race
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