VOR: ERICSSON 4 LEG SEVEN DAY 3 QFB: received 18.05.09 1524 GMT

by Horacio Carabelli (trimmer)

Hi!

Cold and foggy as usual in this area!

Yesterday was an interesting day with close racing between the five front runners, especially at Sable point, where current was quite strong and we had fishing pods everywhere!!

We were passing PUMA through to windward when we caught a couple of them that nearly stopped the boat, quite demanding trying to avoid them as they were so close to each other and some of them had long floating lines. Once we caught them they go around the keel and you can see the buoy coming at full speed. One of them jumped on our stern wake and nearly hit me while I was in the aftermost part of the cockpit looking how the buoy cleared around the rudder. Fortunately, the other boats were dealing with the same problems and could see their bows going up and down trying to avoid them!

Luckily we were well clear of this area when the night came. It has been quite a radar game with the competition during the night and we did pretty well gaining a bit on the front boats. There is not to much left to the scoring gate so every meter counts!

We have been dealing with some weed that we have in the keel, nothing major but something that you want to get rid off. It has been there for more than 24hours now, but if we decide to back down it will cost us too much so close to the gate. Let’s see what we can do to get rid of it without slowing down.

This morning we identified a big object on the water. Approaching we could see was the back of a whale that was probably sleeping as it dived slowly when we approached. We only passed a couple of metres away and for me it was the closest we had been to one in this race so far.

Volvo Ocean Race