Volvo Ocean Race - Yacht Troubles and Pirate Dangers

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet has run into a bit of trouble leaving the Southern Ocean, with the yachts Green Dragon and Puma experiencing some serious damage. Puma received structural damage while slamming off waves on the race from South Africa to India, and the yacht Green Dragon had an even more serious problem when their steering gear failed in a 50 knot squall, causing the boat to accidentaly gybe, and breaking their boom in two. "When the steering failed I thought we’d broken a rudder or something even more serious. We had just recovered from that when the boom blew up and that could have been even more serious," said Ian Walker, skipper of Green Dragon.

The Green Dragon crew will need to wait for warmer weather to make repairs to the broken boom, at the moment it is too cold for the glue and epoxy to set. “I imagine we’ll start work on it when we hit the trade winds in about two days,” said Ian Walker. “We’ve already used quite a lot of materials fixing other things on the boat. So, we haven’t 100% decided if we are going to repair the boom, but I guess we will have a go just for interest sake and hopefully it will enable us to sail in lighter airs.”

Despite their troubles, Ian Walker and his crew have been making good progress north and are now hoping to beat some yachts into India: “We are sailing at very close to 100% and conversation has changed from how we are going to get to India in time for the start of the next leg to perhaps being able to beat some boats into Cochin. We are after all in 4th after sailing for 4 days without a boom so who knows? What will be absolutely crucial is avoiding any upwind sailing, so this will strongly affect our tactics. So far my race predictions have been good and I predict some wildly varying strategies for the last 1000 miles of this race. Every forecast we get is presenting us with a very different optimal route to Cochin, and some vary by as much as 1000 miles apart. This is good news from our perspective as the last thing we want in our current state is a drag race”.

As mentioned above, the yacht Puma is also a casualty of leg 2. Puma flew off a wave and heard a horrible "crack" as the yacht landed. Running to the bow, Ken Read found many fractures in the longitudinal frames of the bow section. Ken said it took the crew seven hours to make a repair and to patch the spinnaker back together while underway. Rick Deppe on Puma describes the situation: "Talking about tough… the leg so far has been just that, conditions have not let up since we started and that’s a good thing so far as the race and our speedy arrival in Cochin are concerned. Its also been tough with all the repairs going on aboard the yacht. Casey Smith, who is the boat captain of Il Mostro, has done a brilliant job of keeping us in the race, and his efforts and skill means that we will probably make it to India, maybe even win… we will probably all die of some horrible lung condition though… the boat was full of carbon dust for a while. All in a day’s work for this crew… The sailing conditions have been very tough and the crew has currently turned into what I lovingly call ‘sailing robots’… Sail-Sleep-Eat… repeat."

Although the crews can now take a breath as they leave the hardships of the Southern Ocean behind, another threat to their safety lies ahead: Piracy. The yachts are attempting to sail far off the coast while they traverse the pirate ridden waters along the route. Besides the waters off the coast of Somalia, known to be the most dangerous waters in the world for piracy (the routers have them 400 miles off the coast), Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race will also travel through the dangerous pirate waters of the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca - the stretch of water between west Malaysia and the island of Sumatra.

Roger Nilson sailing Telefonica Black is concerned: “This is the first time we are getting into waters which have a risk of piracy so we are wary. Nobody has ever raced in this area before.” Nilson has every right to be concerned, he has some first hand experience with piracy. In 1981 he was delivering a yacht from Antigua to the United States when he was attacked by pirates: ”If you have this experience once, you don’t want it again because the chances that you will survive the next time are probably not as good as the first time.”

Nilson recalls the ordeal he hopes never to repeat: ”They had a gun. They tried to tell us they were Coast Guard and we had to go ashore with them. We were 12 miles off the Cuban coast but we refused to follow. We realised if we did that we’d probably be dead. We were ready to defend ourselves. We had prepared some Molotov cocktails. We had some guys who were trained in the marine corps and we were ready to defend ourselves. I called in a May Day on the radio and we managed to get a 20,000-tonne tanker to turn around and basically saved our lives.”

The Volvo Ocean Race committee is taking every precaution they can think of to avoid any conflict with the pirates in their path, while the sailing crews try not to think of the additional dangers, and focus on the job at hand - getting themselves and their yachts safely into port in India before the other guys.

As always, we'll keep you posted here at YachtPals.com on major developments in the Volvo Ocean Race (formerly called The Whitbread) as the sailors continue Leg 2, north to India.

- K. Hampton exclusively for YachtPals.com

Volvo Ocean Race Leg Two Standings:
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)

1. Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE)
2. Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA)
3. Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED)
4. Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR)
5. Puma Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA)
6. Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP)
7. Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT)
8. Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) 

Sailing Video above: From Puma Racing, speaking about piracy during the Volvo Ocean Race. 

Read more about the Volvo Ocean Race and Piracy:

• Volvo Ocean Race Leg 2 - South Africa to India
• Sailing Photo of the Week - Volvo Ocean Race in Cape Town
• New Sailing World Record - Ericsson 4 Breaks the 600 Mile Barrier in Volvo Ocean Race
• Sailing Photo of the Week - Volvo Ocean Race
• Volvo Ocean Race - Worthy of the Hype?
• Pirates Attack Sailboat in Venezuela
• Somalia Piracy Out of Control
• French Attack Somalian Pirates - Hostages Free
• Somalia Piracy Update
• Piracy (all articles about pirates and piracy)

Sailing Video: Green Dragon breaks boom in Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race. Onboard video from Green Dragon yacht crew.