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
Eat, sleep, sail
‘Finally we can bear away just a bit and put some pace on. It is a relief and it's so much more fun to sail when you can work with the boat in the waves and go around 25 knots instead of 15 to 18.’ Thomas Johanson is smiling again and, like all the other guys onboard, he is really excited over our position.
Everyone is pushing each other to keep working hard. We fight our thumbs and nails off for not giving away any of the miles we have gained.
So far the Southern Ocean has been very kind to us. With winds around 20 knots and calm sea. At the moment we are doing 22–28 knots in around 110-120 true wind angle.
We just past latitude 43 but we still have northerly winds which keep the temperature up. When it turns around, and it will, we will for sure get to use all the clothes we brought. It's still nice 16 degrees sea temperature, but the water is getting colder and colder now.
Since the start in Qingdao we still haven't had any proper downwind. Magnus Olsson is worried. ‘It seems like everything is upside down and I am turning into a zombie. It is just eat, sleep, sail, eat, sleep, sail, water, water, water for hours and hours, days and weeks’, he says and continues:
‘I must admit that sometimes you get pretty fed up with this. But it is mostly because of all the reaching. At this stage you can usually have a spinnaker up and enjoy being able to talk with the guys around you. Now it is the never ending hard reaching with helmet on, constant spray in your eyes. It's impossible to hear anyone during the watches and you get trapped with your own thoughts. It's just crazy.’
Anyway we are going really fast now and our boat captain and ‘stacking police’ Jens Dolmer has made sure everything is stacked aft, since it seems we are going to be doing some heavy reaching the next coming days on our way to the ice gate. Actually it looks that we can get some downwind as well. I know a few that will be happy if that happens.
Volvo Ocean Race
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