VOR: ERICSSON 3 LEG SIX DAY 4 QFB: received 14.04.09 1339 GMT

by Gustav Morin

"It's tragical"

This morning I said to Magnus Olsson:
"Have you thought about that it is only about two months until we will arrive in Stockholm?"

He instantly changed from the smiling Magnus we are used to, to become very serious. He answered with a grumpy face and his head down:
"I know, it feels tragical. I don't want to think about it. Can't we just continue and make another lap straight away?"

"So you would actually want to do that?" I asked.

"Of course, without a doubt!"

I would say that everyone onboard Ericsson 3 is pretty enthusiastic about sailing, and many of us are not saying that we won't do this race again. But no one is as clear about it as Magnus.

We have not been sailing very well the last couple of hours. But it has been very tricky conditions with a lot of squalls and we have all the time been on the limit of the range between two sails. I think we have changed from the mast head zero to a smaller headsail about six times in four hours.

We have also lost a lot to most of our opponents. Most obvious we lost a lot to Ericsson 4 who had been just beside us for a long time.

We are generally trying to avoid the big squalls but it seems that we sometimes just have to go straight into them. Once, early this morning, we were really happy to being able to avoid a big cloud while Ericsson 4 didn't. Unfortunately for us they got more wind inside the cloud and took of a couple of miles while we were lying still with no breeze at all. It is very tricky to foresee which cloud will pay off to hit and which will not.

Volvo Ocean Race