Happy Birthday to Tom Braidwood onboard Green Dragon, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Guo Chuan/Green Dragon Racing/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Ian Walker (skipper)
Three milestones today onboard the Green Dragon. First, we are celebrating our third birthday of the leg - Happy Birthday Tom Braidwood. Tom project managed the build of the Dragon so perhaps it is appropriate that he celebrates his birthday onboard. Secondly, today marks one month at sea since leaving China.
For many of us this is a personal record. Thirdly we have just passed the ice gate at 45 degrees south and have now set our course for Cape Horn 1900 miles away. Thank God for that - it really didn't feel right heading north!
The next four or five days are going to be a real test for navigators and sailors alike. There is a deep low pressure system that will cut across our path with winds in excess of 50 knots in places. This gives an opportunity to sail over the top of the low pressure as Ericsson 3 did east of New Zealand – the question is do you really want to put yourself in the path of these winds? To not do so could leave you in light air or headwinds and losing hundreds of miles. Needless to say we are monitoring the development of this low pressure closely - we don't have to decide anything just yet.
Life onboard is not too bad at the moment. We saw the sun today and tonight we are sailing under bright stars and a full moon. It's a little chilly, but not as cold as when we were further south.
Lunch is served onboard Green Dragon, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Guo Chuan/Green Dragon Racing/Volvo Ocean Race.
Food as always is a source of most complaints. Yesterday our food bag was missing a meal - something we can ill afford right now when we know we are going to run out before getting to Rio. We took the last meal out of day 40 as a temporary replacement. We have also started putting the next day’s food out the night before so the night watches have some snacks. The problem now is that everything is typically gone by breakfast and it is a long day with only two freeze dried meals and no snacks. Soon I think we will have to divide everything up between 11 of us so there can be no argument about stealing all the snacks/ sweets. To be honest I can only see this situation getting worse between now and the finish.
The great thing now is it does feel like the finish is in sight. In our minds we broke this huge leg down into more manageable chunks. These were exiting China Sea, the Doldrums, New Zealand scoring waypoint, ice gate one, ice gate two, Cape Horn, and finish. As you can see from the list we have five down and two to go.
Volvo Ocean Race
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