Shifting weather leaves us in doldrums

MAKING WAVES:The last week has been a sobering experience, as some fickle breezes saw us lose a 100-mile lead and reach the safe-haven port in fourth place

HOW QUICKLY things can change. A week ago we were leading this second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. A lot of hard work by everyone on board Groupama plus more than a little nerve saw us pull into the lead of this leg from Cape Town to our mystery “safe haven port” somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Well, we’ve arrived at that secret spot but in fourth place and feeling more than a little bruised for all our effort.

Iker Martinez and his team on Telefonica ended up match-racing Chris Nicholson’s Kiwi crew on Camper right the way to the finish on Monday night. The Spanish rolled over the boys from Down Under just shy of the finishing-line and crossed with a two-minute lead.

That’s two from two for Iker.

Despite our disappointment, I’m pleased for him – especially as this is an entirely home-grown team with just three non-Spaniards on board to help deliver their victory. My mate Neal McDonald is a watch-leader and I’m thrilled for him too.

And the Kiwis have their second second-place for the race so far so they’re sitting pretty. Ken Read on Puma proved to be our nemesis and slipped past us at the weekend – some Christmas present that.

So how did it happen, how did we lose such a sweet lead?

This leg was looking so positive for us. Having led out of Cape Town, then first across the Agulhas current, we threw all our cards on the table for a big strategy to sail south away from the fleet to get around a blocking trough of light weather.

Although we fell to the back of the fleet on the rankings, the move allowed us to get further east and into a faster sailing angle than the others. By this time last week, we had the lead with almost 100 miles on the next boat. It was all down to the intense efforts of our skipper Franck Cammas and Jean-Luc Nelias, our navigator.

Scorching northwards towards the “stealth zone” where our position-reporting would be masked as an anti-piracy measure, we set out our stall for crossing the doldrums region south of the equator.

As we sailed further north, conditions on board became extreme as the heat was barely manageable yet we still needed to maintain our watch-routine as well as deal with sail-handling, which was even more physically-demanding in the high-temperatures. Night-sail brought slightly cooler and definitely more welcome air.

As we approached the zone, our plan fell apart around us.

As lead boat, we made the decision to position ourselves directly between the chasing fleet and the optimum route across the 300-mile stretch of ocean. The assumption was that the others would follow and we would protect out lead even though we fully expected the distances to compress as we slowed in the fickle doldrums while the others carried better breeze all the way up to us.

In fact, from their better position astern of us, more up to date weather data showed a change that offered a faster route through to the east. We were committed and couldn’t change and worse, the doldrums proved even deeper where our route lay while the others were able to get past.

Our fate was sealed when Read and the Puma team who were setting up to follow us managed to get further east and also passed us by. Only Ian Walker and the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing crew were behind while Mike Sanderson’s Team Sanya are still in Madagascar with rig-damage and will miss the stop-over in the Emirate.

Like all of us, Franck and Jean-Luc were gutted yesterday morning despite many positives of this leg. We remain third overall and over the next three weeks, we will have three more point-scoring opportunities.

On finishing, our boats were almost immediately craned onto a cargo ship – with masts stepped – and have now departed on a five-day passage to a port close to Abu Dhabi where they’ll be unloaded.

We’ll have a one-day sprint to the official stop-over port where we can score 20 per cent of a normal leg as we complete the stage from South Africa.

In Abu Dhabi, we’ll have the In-Port Race for another 20 per cent of leg points while the third leg to Sanya in China will commence on the January 15th with a reverse of the sprint back to the cargo ship and then load-up to return to the safe-haven port.

It’s still a long race, with plenty of opportunities remaining and in spite of the outcome of the stage, we’re happy to be here in one piece and confident for the future.

Plus, within a day, we’ll be in Abu Dhabi with our families for a short break before rejoining the boat next week.