Camper zeilt een race tegen de tijd want ze worden voor donderdag aanstaande in Itajai verwacht. Er staat nog minder dan 600 zeemijl op hun teller. Zelf verwachten ze rond 17 april binnen te zijn. Zal hen dat lukken? De nieuwe mast van Groupama is in Brazilië aangekomen. Abu Dhabi en Sanya zijn nog onderweg. Zware gesprekken tussen de schippers van alle teams over het feit dat de boten niet sterk genoeg zouden zijn, competitiedrang, op het scherp van de snede zeilen en het al dan niet halen van de finish…?
Van Uden of In-Port race?
Vrijdag is de Pro-Am race, zaterdag de In-Port race, en zondag starten de jongens voor een tripje naar Miami van 3600nm. En dit allemaal terwijl wij de Van Uden gaan varen. De heren pro-zeilers hebben er geen idee van wat ze gaan missen door niet in Stellendam te kunnen zijn, maar soit, ze moeten het zelf weten. Ondertussen is Groupama met haar noodtuig ook in Brazilië aangekomen, en claimt daarmee de 2de plek op in het overall klassement.
Bootjes breken kost geld en punten…
Ondertussen wordt er zwaar gedebatteerd over het feit dat de boten niet sterk genoeg zouden zijn. Waar halen ze dat nu vandaan? Ze zijn toch ‘bijna’ allemaal aangekomen?
Ok Team Sanya is moeten terug draaien wegens een gebroken roer, wat blijkbaar een stuurfout was. Sanya zou op 27 april in Savannah aankomen. Camper heeft onderdak moeten zoeken omdat de langsscheepse structuur niet meer katholiek was. Abu Dhabi ging dezelfde haven binnen om wat delaminatie terug recht te zetten. Dit resulteerde echter in “Volvo’ke” op de ferry zetten en iemand anders rond Kaap Hoorn te laten varen. Hun boot komt op 18 april aan.
Telefónica had ook een delaminatie probleempje aan de boeg en repareerde dit op het meest Zuidelijke punt ter wereld. Blijft er over: Puma en Groupama. Oh ja, Groupama brak haar mast en moest een MacGuyver oplossing fiksen. Puma is dus de enige die ongehavend de finish behaalde.
Wat zeiden de schippers?
Chris Nicholson (Camper): “I imagine there are quite different opinions out there but everyone sailing on these boats know exactly what they are capable of,” Nicholson added. “We could be racing around in steel hulled boats, doing a maximum of 12 knots, never breaking anything and effectively turning everyone away from watching the race.
Iker Martinez (Telefónica): “The boats get damaged because they are very fast. They can easily reach 40 knots and to not have any damage at that speed the boat would have to be very strong and thus not ideal to win an around a world race.
“The best way to win this race is to have a very fast boat and stop it when it needs to be stopped,” he added. “That is the type of boat that we have, we compete with it, and we have to take all of that into account and that’s that.”
Mike Sanderson (Sanya): “When they’re going fast they crash hard. “Just take a second and look at what these guys put these boats through. Sometimes they’re not even trying, you know. Sometimes they’re trying to slow the boats down and they can’t. They’re incredible.”
Ian Walker (Abu Dhabi): We — not just us, all the teams — just don’t seem to be able to get through the tough conditions in this race. “Before the start of Leg 5 it hadn’t been too bad. We hadn’t had too many breakages up until then. “When you look at this leg however, you have to say we can’t go on like this.” “I don’t think you can blame the rule and these boats are all very well build. “I just think we are pushing them so hard and the boats are so stiff and so light that I guess things are inevitably going to break with these materials.”
Franck Cammas (Groupama): I believe that with each generation of Volvo Open 70s the teams try to make the boats more and more stable and learn from previous mistakes. “We all know and the experts know that loss of reliability means at the end of the day a loss of money and a loss of time. “Reliability is the most important thing and every rule is twisted towards that.”
“People mustn’t say that the boats are less reliable than before because they’re not. “Certainly the level of competition of this Volvo Ocean Race is making us push the boats harder than ever before. They go faster than ever before too because they’re better designed.”
“You can always change the rules, sometimes it’s good to and maybe we could make the boats more resistant – but let’s not worry ourselves too much, it’s all part of the sport. “In Formula 1 if there was never an accident it wouldn’t even be Formula 1 and with the Volvo if there weren’t breakages like this we wouldn’t be hitting the extreme benchmark.
Ken Read (Puma): The modern day boats were arguably too fast and conditions had been such in the Southern Ocean that the helmsmen spent most of their time trying to slow down to avoid damaging the boat.“That’s when the human element has to take over and say, ‘Listen, there is a limit to sailing these boats at this pace before things can go catastrophically wrong.
“Going at 40 knots is the dumbest thing you could do, because you would be out of control. However sometimes you don’t have the choice, a couple of big waves pick you up and suddenly you are off like a scalded dog. “You have to do everything you can to stop the boat going airborne. “It is the waves within the waves that do the damage. It’s the 10- footers that are all over the 50-footers that act as the launching ramp and those are the ones that do the damage.”
“There is a huge amount of luck involved. “It’s like a car crash — if I had left the house ten seconds later my car wouldn’t have been in that position and the whole thing would not have happened. “Well, if something had happened just prior and you weren’t on that particular part of the wave at that point, then the boat wouldn’t have gone airborne and you wouldn’t have come crashing down and broken the boat in half.”
“The fact is that the race has become so competitive, that forces us to push harder in conditions which we would traditionally not normally have pushed. “To win you need to be on the edge all the time. Backing off means taking off that last 10 per cent, which means you have gone from completely out of control to just kind off out of control.”
“It’s human competitive nature to push and you can break anything but you have to have the self preservation mentality which says we can’ break now because this is how we are going to lost the race.”
En wat vertellen de punten ons?
Ondertussen in de overall stand staat Team Telefónica op 1 met 147pts gevolgd door Groupama op 2 met 127pts. Dan hebben we Puma met 113pts maar die zullen een stapke terug moeten zetten als Camper binnen komt met 104pts en haar 15pts voor de etappe binnen rijft. De Kiwi’s komen dan zo op die 3de plek komt te staan en schuiven Puma naar een 4de met slechts 7 punten verschil. Abu Dhabi heeft 55pts en Team Sanya 25pts.
www.volvooceanrace.com
