“No one really knows exactly what to do with this weather,” admits Rob Greenhalgh, sitting on the deck of MAPFRE’s red boat and looking up thoughtfully.
“There’s going to be a header out here and it’s just a case of seeing who’s fast. Team SCA have proved pretty fast, Abu Dhabi as always have proved pretty fast, DFRT have been fast.
He pauses. “Everyone is just ushering each other east.”
It’s Day 4 of Leg 6, and, incredibly, the fleet is still within just 10nm of each other as they race the 5,010nm voyage to Newport, Rhode Island.
Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing leads the pack, and MAPFRE sits fourth in line at the 1530 UTC position report.
“We’ll get into a sail-change frenzy as the wind decreases,” Rob continues. “We’ll go through the Fractionals to the Masthead Zeros, and then things will change a bit.
“We’ve got Team SCA to windward here, and we know they don’t have a Fractional so that will hurt them!” he laughs.
The girls’ FR0 took a battering during Leg 5 – and that’s not the only piece of kit that’s had to go under the microscope on the magenta boat.
“We were just going through a tack, and the whole drum of the 990 winch basically cracked,” explains Sophie Ciszek.
“We had to unload the boat, throw the Masthead, and put the runner on another winch. We’ve got four of those winches onboard so we managed to take another top and put it on that winch. We’re still going along.”
As she cradles the damaged drum, sunlight spills through the fracture. “Unless we can try and laminate over that top and fix it, we’re going to be one winch down, which is going to cost us.”
It’s a real sucker punch for the all-female boat – and, in the dark of the galley, her teammate Abby Ehler sits with her head heavy, taking a moment to reflect.
“The odds of this happening are a billion to one, and it’s our lucky day. It’s so early on as well - really annoying,” she says.
It’s not all gloom and doom though. After all, SCA currently sit second in the fleet, just 2.15nm behind the leaders – and can take comfort in the fact that they’re not the only ones having to conduct an offshore repair job.
“We’ve broken an outrigger and we’ve got two options to repair it,” says Azzam’s Daryl Wislang, snapping off shredded carbon.
“In this case, we’re just going to cut the end off and make it a bit shorter - the biggest problem is that I can’t get the pin out of it at the moment. It’s a tricky fitting.”
With the fleet having split into two factions, Ian Walker’s crew is the western-most boat in the fleet at the last position report.
And Rob believes that they’re in prime position when the moment comes to tack – which should be sometime tomorrow.
“We’ll have a tack soon, Abu Dhabi are way up to windward now, they’ll get the hammer down at some stage and try to pull bearing.
“They’ll lead out to the north for sure at the tack, hope that we can be in second or third.”
Also hoping to come out of that tack in amongst the leaders will be homecoming boat, Team Alvimedica. Their orange hull is currently third in the rankings – and they had further cause to celebrate yesterday, as Will Oxley turned 50 onboard.
“It’s a significant milestone,” he laughs. “How long are you going to live?”
“I feel very lucky at 50 to still be in the top end of the sport, plying my craft in the Volvo Ocean Race. Luckily for me, Navigators tend to get better with age!”
Time to put that experience to the test, Will.
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