Sail changes onboard PUMA Ocean Racing, on leg 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Rio de Janeiro to Boston. Image copyright Rick Deppe/PUMA Ocean Racing/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Rick Deppe
After rounding the scoring gate at Fernando, our next milestone is the Equator, currently 70 miles up ahead. This will be our fourth and final crossing and mark our entry into the Northern Hemisphere. After the equator it is a mile straight shot to the next mark which is a whale exclusion zone off Cape Cod. It’s a lot of sailing- hopefully we can use the distance to get back to the leaders and make up for missing out on valuable points at the scoring gate where we were squeezed out by Delta Lloyd who rounded about 50 meters in front of us. It was an exciting rounding in the dark with the rocks about 200 meters to our left and the lights of the island clearly visible. The mood onboard is a little muted with the crew very focused on the task at hand. Not much of the usual PUMA banter or high jinks at the moment. My prediction is that the equator will pass with little ceremony. Everyone onboard has now crossed it many times so there's no reason for too much ceremony anyway.
It has been nice to race alongside Delta Lloyd for a while especially for Sid and Bob (Rob Greenhalgh). That boat used to be called ABN Amro and they both sailed it to victory as key crew-members in the last Volvo Race. I think it is safe to say that they both have a soft spot for that boat and they've even been getting a little whimsical talking about the old days! The Delta Lloyd team came to the race very late and they've had their fair share of problems, it's great to see them doing well (hopefully not too well for too much longer) and also a fantastic demonstration of a measurement rule working well. Hopefully a good omen for the next event, it would be nice to see a few of this year’s boats back out there for another crack at it.
The next few hundred miles will see us passing through the Doldrums once again. To the layman, the Doldrums would seem to be an area of light winds where not much happens. The reality is very different and already since Fernando, we have experienced a lot of cloud and squall activity with wind speeds between eight knots and 28 knots. These lulls and gusts can come with little or no warning and often the team must simply ride out the squall- often sailing for many minutes with the wrong sail up. A little earlier today we went though a particularly massive rain squall, fortunately it was one of the ones with not much wind so we were afforded the luxury of showers in the clean cool water running off the mainsail.
PUMA Ocean Racing
Volvo Ocean Race
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