Volvo Ocean Race Leg 4 - Amer Sports One On The Edge

Last night Amer Sports One came close to disaster as they lost control of their overpowered yacht when charging towards two large icebergs right in front of them. When the yacht wiped out, they shredded the storm spinnaker. After rerighting the boat, Roger Nilson navigated them through a gap between the two bergs. This has given Tyco the opportunity to slip into second place.

The yachts are still extremely far from land, beyond any outside help. Cape Horn lies 1450 miles ahead. Paul Cayard reckons, that the iceberg zone could be passed in 24 hours time.

With strong wind coming up from behind the whole fleet gained some miles on the leading yacht illbruck. SEB and ASSA ABLOY are still at 60 south in very cold conditions. News Corp is back in full racing mode and achieved the highest average over the last six hours. Amer Sports Too is sailing in 35 to 40 knots of winds, the rest in the mid twenties.

Position Report: Leg 4, Day 11, 0420 GMT

Update from Steve Hayles, Tyco - A Real Mess

The brutal reality of the Southern Ocean keeps hitting home hard. This leg has not been an easy one to date and we are all looking forward to some less stressful sailing. Everything you do down here from eating to a major heavy air gybe is just plain harder to do than it is in any 'normal' ocean. There will be a collection of very impressive stories from throughout the fleet after this leg and it's hard to pick any that I could do justice to in a few words.

A difficult manoeuvre today which we pulled off after some effort resulted in the boat being in a real mess. Two spinnakers in the bilge unpacked and all the water that goes with them and all of the food, spares, clothing etc. in disarray after the guys went through the tough job of moving almost everything on the boat when we gybe or tack.

After we finished on deck we spent a couple of hours re-ordering the inside of the boat and generally taking stock of the situation. Our damage to the boat was minimal after such a gruelling few days and certainly nothing that would slow us down. We had enough food, water and gas to last the whole way and generally the boat was in decent shape considering. The people probably get hit harder by these conditions than any fitting or item of equipment especially as we have had several 'time critical' manoeuvres in the last few days, which require everyone so our sleeping patterns have been bad to say the least. We are still managing to sail the boat flat out but we will work hard in the next 24 hours on getting everyone rested.

We are less than 1500 miles to Cape Horn right now, which is a major 'turning point' both metaphorically and literally, so we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Good, solid, controlled sailing is our aim in the last few days of the section of the leg and hopefully we can get to the [Cape] Horn in reasonable shape within the fleet. Tactically it never stops being interesting and there are at least two significant shifts to come through the fleet in the next few days and also areas of varying wind speeds. We are reasonably happy with our position at present but as always are looking for an opportunity to get away from the pack and into the leading boat.

A big hello to our friends and families and can the wives and girlfriends please take note that when we say that we start talking about coming back down here in four years time that we should be locked away until we come to our senses.

Update from Paul Cayard, Amer Sports One - Completely Irresponsible

The antithesis of Volvo...completely irresponsible. That is how we behaved last night and so did most of the fleet I imagine.

Our case in point went as follows. With second place in our hands and a nice gain on the fleet nust having been made being made, the winds steadily built during the afternoon and backed to the southwest making it desirable to gybe and sail on starboard tack. As there was 35 knots +, we did this manoeuvre by taking the spinnaker down, putting in the first reef, and rehoisting on the other board...careful and safe. By the time we rehoisted, got all the gear restacked and got the house sorted out and got dinner made and eaten, we had missed a few watch rotations.

As night approached the winds maintained the 35+knots when actually they were forecast to moderate. At the same time, the iceberg and growler count was growing by 10 per hour. We were sailing with one reef and the smallest spinnaker we have, so we felt fairly prudent about that. However, while watching the radar and seeing nothing, we sailed just 100 feet away from a growler that was 10 feet out of water. It was an ominous realization.

As there were only three of us capable of driving in these conditions, we decided to rotate every two hours. The first term went well with 36 knots top-speed and black darkness for just the last half hour. When I came up it was black dark and blowing 30-35knots. Within 10 minutes of taking the helm a squall hit us with 40 knots. Very intense in the pitch black with huge, sloppy waves as you get down here. Then 15 minutes later I got a blast of 45 knots for three minutes. This was absolutely crazy. Hanging on until it passed, I told Grant [Dalton] that I could not do my full two hours of that intensity without serious chance of wiping out. I should have said that no one could but I did not want to speak for the others. That was a mistake and not using my experience. So as the next helmsman prepared to come up I got two more squalls of 45+. Southern ocean 45+. With the temperature down here that is 50+ everywhere else. I managed to hang on to this beast which was hurtling through the pitch black of night, doing 30+ knots at one moment, running into large objects at random (waves that I could not see), as we caromed off these waves they would alter my course up to 15 degrees in a situation where degrees of course change can throw the whole boat out of balance. On top of all this, the growlers were still out there, we just did not happen to hit any. What if we did at 30 knots of boat speed? Maybe News Corp can tell us. All three of us, Amer Sports One drivers, have strong cases of tendonitis in our hands now. Three fingers of my left hand are tingling numb constantly. I have lost 50% of my grip strength in that hand. Yet on we went. We just wanted to get to daylight and it would all be much easier. We needed about another hour and a half. An hour and a half after I grabbed the wheel I was so happy to give it up. I should have said, let's slow this bus down, we are in great shape, our house is neat and dry, no damage, etc. I failed to say that. So did everyone else.

30 minutes into that last driver, onto our side we went. The gyration was so violent, that downstairs where I was sitting recovering, the engine box cover, which doubles as the companion way stairs, simply left its mount and landed on me. We got up on deck and found the kite was shredded. No sooner had we gotten the kite down and Roger [Nilson] yells up, two icebergs ahead, four miles. It was a blessing to have the kite down but the width of the two bergs forced us to sail between them. This is not recommended in any book. Needless to say we had a few tense moments there but we got through it unscathed. We polled out a blast reacher and just chilled out for a few hours and took the 20-mile hit on the sked.

Now we are back on our bike at full capacity, back in the watch system, house back in order. Are we any wiser? Hard to say. I think we have made these mistakes before and we made them again last night.

The difficulty is that the further away an experience like that gets from you, the more your competitive instincts take over your judgement. I think it is safe to say we wont do that again on this leg.

But one thing we are stuck with is the icebergs. The whole fleet is. We will not be out of the zone for at least 24 hours.

Staying alert at 5941s 11618w.

Update from Gurra Krantz, SEB - Russian Roulette

I do not know what other people think but passing growlers at night, boat speed 20 -25 knots, within a couple of feet makes me nervous. Three times have we passed a growler, the size of a car, so close that the white water around it actually touches the hull! Russian roulette is probably safer than this. We had 21 large icebergs on radar one night. Four of them we had to alter course to avoid. How many growlers we have passed I do not know. Water temp 1,4 degree C and snowing heavily at times. Sounds like the perfect world to live in doesn't it?

Gybed back at 60.04 S and are now heading east. Still a lot of ice everywhere. We are the extreme opposite to News Corp, they are 200 miles north of us, and last sked it was only two miles between us. It will be very interesting to see who gets to the [Cape] Horn first. After being without instruments for a couple of days we have, thanks to Magnus Woxen, got it all running again. He took the whole computer apart and did something, only he knows what it was, and voila, numbers on the screens again. Strange, isn't it that numbers on a screen can make you so happy down here. At least it will make it a lot easier when sailing hard running at night.

Inside of the boat is still ok. One out of the two heaters we have is working. It has been on full power for six days. This makes it possible to dry out if (or when) getting wet. The only way to get really wet is to run from the companionway to the transom and then do your things there. Back there is not so dangerous, it is when you think it is safe to rush forward and dive through the hatch you expose yourself to Murphy's Law. If there is one wave that day, that will fly over the deck, and land in the cockpit, it will happen exactly when you have max speed forward, pushing the hatch open, and then looking foolishly at 600 liters of water aiming straight at you. Not only you soak yourself, but also the 300 liters of water that doesn't hit you will go straight down the hatch and land inside the boat. It has become like a suicide mission, to run in your base layer, only, to do this. Before getting on deck you ask the guys in the cockpit if it is safe. If you have shared your snacks with them they will make sure you get up dry. It is when going back you have to make your own decision when to dash for the hatch. They will not lift a finger top help you. Nobody will lower ropes they are holding on to, you have to run a steeplechase in the cockpit. Nobody would even think of altering the course to avoid a wave. You are on your own, making the decision and then go. Round the wheels you go, through the coffee grinders, over the main sheet, under the spinnaker sheet, now you are getting close, jump over the staysail halyard at the same time hands are on the hatch, only fractions of a second to late. Wet again.

Update from Emma Westmacott, Amer Sports Too - Lovely Stuff

This is what I am doing this for, big seas, big breeze, big enough sails, fast speeds, and our share of wipe outs, wouldn't be going hard if that did not happen.

Crashing along with heart in mouth adrenalin pumping as the boat surges down wave after wave. We have had three days of awesome sailing with average speeds of 15-20 knots great stuff.

Everyone is tired now after change after change, peels galore to keep the bus moving with optimum kit up. But the breeze has been quite unpredictable, fronts being delayed and now here we go again into a huge breeze. Had a bit on with some of the kite drops but nothing nonnegotiable.

Icebergs ...burgers.... appeared in plenty this morning, amazing there were none out last night. We passed by two burgers today to leeward and learnt that growlers hang there too, scary, very scary we saw nothing last night and had two hours today of growler after growler. It is cold. I have chilblains again.

But back to the sailing, I could sail here everyday of my life and not get bored, this is like a gnarly day out windsurfing, with too big a sail and every so often you get too much air and think you are going to die, but you hang on and the adrenalin buzz is fantastic...

So right now I don't care where the other boats are, except I hope they are safe, we are, having a ball, and wish all you guys at home could experience this too. This is sailing at its best...

More Information:

• YachtsandYachting.com Volvo Ocean Race Information Page
• www.VolvoOceanRace.org