Fernando Echavarri, onboard Telefonica Black, on leg 7 from Boston to Galway. Image copyright Anton Paz/Telefonica Black/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Roger Nilson (navigator)
What a relief..! Winter turned into summer as we swept around the south east corner of the ice box. Water temp was suddenly up to 18 Celsius, blue skies and hot sun as we hoisted our big kite at lunchtime yesterday and started to go downhill.
Ericsson 4 was close in our heels around the imaginary mark and, after a short gybe to the north, we could even see the Blue boat on the south western horizon.
The reason for the warmth is of course a branch of the Gulf Stream which, at times today, was pushing us north east with two knots of welcome current. This famous current is the only reason why we in Scandinavia have an acceptable climate, otherwise Stockholm would be like Northern Alaska.
The warm current brought something with it that caused an unexpected little adventure today. Suddenly the whole boat started to vibrate and the steering felt very strange. Nothing was hanging on the rudders so what could it be? David Vera took the endoscope and put it through its hole in the bottom of the boat to inspect the keel and dagger board. He burst out into a roaring laughter.
“Look, look there is a big turtle stuck on the leading edge of the keel, unbelievable...!”
Nobody believed him until we all had a quick look through the optical instrument. Sure, there it was, a three feet full size ocean going turtle was hanging on the front side of the thin keel blade and desperately trying to free itself with all its four little paddle-like fins. Fernando Echávarri at the helm was doing everything to help it come loose, first by swinging the keel from side to side; finally he put the boat into a full broach in the modest 15 knots SSW’ly wind. Ericsson 4, only two miles behind us must have been wondering what we were doing, steering all over the ocean in order to free ourselves from a turtle!
No luck, the turtle was still stuck pressed onto the keel by 13 knots of boat speed.
“Let us stop the boat and back off..!” was the call from Fernando and soon we drop the kite on the foredeck, go head to wind, stop and with help of the staysail go backwards.
“There it is, just next to the boat..!” says David and we can all see the seemingly unhurt turtle swimming around on the surface in gentle circles. What a ride for the poor animal! It looks happy and we wave goodbye, hoist the kite and off we go again. Ericsson 4 is now a few hundred metres behind, but hours later they have passed us with their irritating edge in boat speed.
Another day in the office... Who said it is boring to be at sea..?
Volvo Ocean Race
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