Twenty Somethings

I am so ecstatic about how our day has gone, it's hard to know where to start. I've just come down to the nav station from some incredible sailing.

Wind speed: 20 something
Boat speed: 20 something
Sky: Clear
Temperature: Warm
Moon: Full and bright
Smiles: All around.

When our morning started, we were sitting in 7th place with quite a bit of ground to make up on the boats in front. They were bunched together about 70 miles ahead of us. Because this group was all in sight of each other, and preoccupied with each other, we had a great opportunity to sail our own race.

We started the day on starboard tack in about 12 knots of wind. Since we were anticipating a left shift in the breeze, we took the opportunity to gybe away from the pack and gain some leverage.

We interrupt this dialogue for a small tutorial:

The game of sailing is like climbing a ladder. If you are on the same rung as another guy, you are even. Wind shifts are the equivalent of tilting the ladder, or rotating it. If a wind shift moves you up a rung, you are gaining. If the ladder rotates and rungs pass you by and you drop to a lower rung, you are losing.

Narrow ladder/wide ladder: If you are close to the competition and on the same rung (on a narrow ladder), you have little leverage and wind shifts have little impact. If you are on a wide ladder at opposite ends of a rung, small shifts make for significant gains and losses. Managing leverage is a key to effective strategy.

Back to the game we played today:

Having anticipated a shift of the ladder rungs, we decided to
increase our leverage and gybe. After about an hour, our competition gybed as well. As we hoped, the wind shifted our way, we moved up the ladder rungs, 'rung the register' and gybed back toward the competition. In the process we crossed the Russians and made a big gain on the leaders.

To our surprise the group matched our gybe and positioned themselves just to windward and ahead of us. We were all heading west on starboard tack again.

This was fantastic news for us. We had the opportunity to make another gybe maneuver to 'lever up' yet again. Some wind pressure looked to be building along the African coast later in the day, so once again we broke away.

The rest of the fleet followed suit, thirty minutes later.

We were in a drag race to the coast of Africa, where we hoped to
capitalize on the confluence of stronger gradient/a left shift/a
late afternoon seabreeze.

As we gybed back to starboard we found ourselves in
a building breeze and it was shifting left. Oh, baby. Puma and
Ericsson 4 were the only other boats to carry on port for as long as we did, and once we gybed back to starboard, the fleet was in the position we had hoped for. As we extended on starboard, the breeze built to 18, then 20, then 25.

We had our big gear up: a full main, an A4 (our biggest downwind runner) and a staysail. We have been tearing a hole in the ocean for the past 7 hours. The best part is that the boats to our north are not in as much wind as Puma, Ericsson 4, and us. Furthermore, those boats have to either navigate their way all the way around the Canary Islands (where there is less wind) or go through them. Puma, Ericsson 4 and our boat are all passing between Africa and Lanzarote with the prospect of holding the maximum breeze.

I'm willing to hope for some great news to report from the 'hot seat' tomorrow. Later in the week I'll respond to reader questions that revolve around detailing our on board computing, communication, software and technology set up. Keep sending in your questions to my editors at SAIL Magazine, and I'll try to get to all of them.

Matt Gregory, from the nav station of Delta Lloyd


Editor's note: Volvo Ocean Race rules prevent Matt from having access to the internet, so his dispatches are routed through the VOR Duty Officer, then posted at Sail West. That is, Matt can't get to the internet, so he can't post his own blogs. But, since none of the other navigators in the race can get to the internet, he feels secure in writing whatever he wants. I will cheerfully forward your comments to the boat, and if you prefer you can ask questions at blog@gregorysports.com, and I will forward those.

It's a kick to be part of the adventure—Kimball

P.S. Things indeed went well for Delta Lloyd in this interval. While Green Dragon has chosen the Canaries passage for its 12-hour stealth mode, we see some changes in position, per below:

PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) DTF 5436
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTL 2nm
Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) DTL 37nm
Delta Lloyd IRL (Ger O'Rourke/IRL) DTL 67nm
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DTL 89nm
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) DTL 90nm
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) DTL 107nm
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) StealthPlay