Volvo Ocean Race
Ericsson Racing Team continued its dominance of the Volvo Ocean Race on leg six when Torben Grael and Magnus Olsson, the skippers of Ericsson 4 and Ericsson 3, led the fleet into Boston at the conclusion of the 4,900 nautical mile leg from Rio de Janeiro.
This is getting to be a theme now; the two Ericsson teams shared the top two positions on the previous leg from Qingdao to Rio as well, but in that case, Magnus Olsson's Ericsson 3 finished on top.
In Boston, Ericsson 4 crossed the finish line off Fan Pier with an elapsed time for the leg of 15 days, 10 hours and 30 minutes. The team earn eight points for their efforts, in addition to the 3.5 points they picked up for being in second place at the Fernando de Norohna scoring waypoint.
Ericsson 4 navigator Jules Salter attributed their success on the leg to luck, although a bit of elbow grease and graft contributed as well.
"It was very hard work, probably the hardest, but we had a lot of luck to get this win. People talk about strategy and reading books, but I think it comes down to luck. We knew our sails and our crew work was good, but it was never certain until we were over the finish. I've had 30 minutes sleep in the past day. Really, the whole leg has been a bit like that."
The leader at the scoring waypoint, Telefonica Blue, finished in third place for the leg, a disappointing result for the team who looked so secure in their lead for much of the leg. But a fateful decision on when to gybe, just three days out from the finish, cost the team dearly.
Telefonica Blue had led the fleet for 12 of the 15 days of this leg. At one point, the lead which they snatched just 10 hours into the leg had ballooned as high as 108 miles. But from April 20 to April 23, the fleet began to reel in the Blue boat. On the 23rd, with Ericsson 4 now just six miles behind, the call was made to gybe to the west. It was a decision that skipper Bouwe Bekking had been fretting over for at least 24 hours.
"A very tricky call has to be made," he wrote from the boat on April 22. "You gybe too early and you run out of pressure. You gybe too late and you end up sailing a bad angle... This will be the race (winning) call."
In the event, Bekking and navigator Tom Addis elected to err on the early side, cloaking their move under the cover of a 12 hour StealthPlay. But the move backfired. When they reappeared to the rest of the fleet, they were in third place. Three hours later, when Ericsson 4 emerged from their own StealthPlay, Telefonica Blue had fallen to fourth, nearly 55 miles behind the new leader. It was, indeed, the race winning - or losing - call.
Both Ericsson 3 and PUMA profited from Blue's error. The hometown heroes on PUMA moved up to third place, but couldn't hold on all the way to the finish. Bekking and his men clawed back one place on the final night at sea.
They almost had two; Ericsson 3 and Telefonica Blue roared into Boston Harbor just minutes apart, and as both tried to hold a light wind spinnaker all the way to the finish line, it looked set to be a photo finish. But Telefonica Blue couldn't handle the sail in the building breeze, broaching a few hundred metres from the finish. Ericsson 3, ahead, would secure second place.
With Read in fourth place, Telefonica Black was left to battle the resurgent Delta Lloyd for fifth. The black boat had sailed the entire leg a man down after bowman Michael Pammenter left the boat on the first night. He was hurt, with a suspected broken ankle, during the start of the race. He stayed on board for a couple of hours, but it soon became clear he wouldn't be able to contribute in a meaningful way, and he was picked up by a chase boat before the race yacht was too far offshore.
Delta Lloyd had a good first half to their race, scoring third place points at the scoring waypoint. But the team couldn't hold on to that lofty position for the entire leg, falling to sixth by the finish in Boston.
Which left Green Dragon bringing up the rear. Ian Walker's team suffers in 'stability' conditions, where bulb weight is crucial in translating righting moment into speed. Walker figures the team is 'five to ten percent slower' in those conditions. Unfortunately for the Dragon, there was plenty of that in this leg.
"We are a bit shy on bulb weight and as soon as you are reaching, you are enough off the pace to make it impossible to keep up with the pack," is the way navigator Ian Moore explained the situation. "I we had that extra tonne (in the bulb), I honestly think this would be a very quick boat."
But without out, the team was always struggling to stay with the fleet and eventually limped home in seventh place.
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