Taking a gamble on the fickle winds of fate

MAKING WAVES: Survival is the name of the game early on as two of the six participating boats are knocked out in Leg 1 and Groupama…

MAKING WAVES:Survival is the name of the game early on as two of the six participating boats are knocked out in Leg 1 and Groupama 4 are hoping their decision to leave the Med to avoid the fierce gales pays off, writes DAMIAN FOXALL

INCREDIBLE. IF you had told us on Groupama 4 a week ago that one third of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet would be knocked out in Leg 1 we might have grudgingly accepted it as an outside chance. But to suggest that this would happen in the first 24 hours is simply far-fetched.

Yet as the forecasts for the weekend of the start from Alicante arrived in showing strong westerly gales smack in the middle of our course out of the Mediterranean, it was clear all six boats were in for a hammering.

But we never really expected the damage to be as severe as it turned out to be.

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A series of gales swept over the region leading up to the start on Saturday and we had a fast departure from Alicante out towards Cartagena where we would start beating against the breeze to reach the Strait of Gibraltar.

We had had a very small incident with Ken Read’s Puma where we touched them slightly in a close quarters incident so we were obliged to make a 720-degree penalty turn.

But there was no damage so it wasn’t a biggy in the scheme of things. We were all well-matched, that much was clear though, each with slight edges in certain wind angles. Even the older boat that is Team Sanya was keeping in touch with the main pack as we punched into a short, choppy seaway on a close reach with staysails set.

Nice pace, averaging around 20 knots as the night closed in.

Then we heard the news that Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing had been dismasted. We were all shocked to learn they had suspended racing.

It was a nasty reminder that these boats simply don’t like pounding upwind as they’re at their best blasting downwind.

Although we’re determined to beat these guys, they’re also our mates. My old pal Justin Slattery from Cork, with whom I’ve done tens of thousands of sea-miles together, is the bowman on board; Ian Walker was our skipper on Green Dragon in the last race.

Preparation is everything in winning this race and these guys on Azzam have put heart and soul into the campaign.

But before the shock of that news had worn off, we then heard that Mike ‘Moose’ Sanderson and the crew of Team Sanya had suffered serious structural damage in the high waves.

Dropping from the top of a wave to the trough below in one of these boats is a sickening experience and very dangerous, both for the sailors and boat itself; the forces are massive and that’s before a wall of water washes down the deck and into the cockpit.

It seems they collided with an object in the water but also have suffered from delamination where the bonding of the layers of composite materials in the hull loosen up from the constant impact. This is pretty much invisible until too late so now they too have pulled out of this leg for repairs.

Both incidents added to our determination not to suffer similar fates so we opted to cross due south towards the coast of Morroco where we could keep sailing fast but avoid the worst of the seaway.

Meanwhile, the lads on Puma, Chris Nicholson’s Camper and Iker Martinez’s Telefonica hugged the Spanish coast and took a pasting as we all edged close to Gib where we could escape into open ocean.

Typically, more or less as soon as we left the Med, the gale abated and since Sunday evening, we have been weighing up our options for getting down to the Trade Winds that will carry us down to the Doldrums region above the Equator.

So we have kept to ourselves and our tactic is to hug the coast of Africa as we head for the Canaries, leaving the other three to cover each other further West. If our hunch is correct, we’ll get some light downwind conditions soon while the others will be beating upwind further out.

It’s a far cry from the last race where five-time Olympic medallist Torben Grael led the fleet southwards along our route and set himself up as the boat to beat for the next eight months.

It’s not going to be quite that easy this time: the boats are too well matched.

These light conditions we have at the moment might even help Walker when they get their new mast sorted tomorrow and they restart the leg. They might even carry a favourable breeze in from behind and catch us. Now that would be a feat! But for now, it looks likely that this leg won’t be any faster than three weeks as the Trade Winds are being blocked by a trough.

We’ll be looking forward to seeing our families in Cape Town soon. My 14-month old daughter Neave took her first steps the day before we started so she’ll be flying around the place by the time we arrive.

For Oisín, he’s a mad keen follower of the race at just four and a half.

His favourite boat was Green Dragon last time but now its Groupama 4.

Still, we walked the dock last week and looked at all the Legends boats gathered and he was fascinated. He’s met up with all his little buddies from last time as well, James McDonald (his dad Neal is on Telefonica this race) and Molly Slattery, who are both in the race school that is set-up in all the stop-over ports.

But before then, we’ve to cross the Doldrums and at the current pace, it’ll be this time next week when we reach there.

In conversation with David Branigan