Changing my mind...

I have never perceived ocean racing to be particularly risky. I don’t have a pull towards the risky aspect of it, I am purely in it for the boat-against-boat racing aspect. For sure things can happen, but as I am generally sailing with very skilled guys, I always feel quite safe. But I guess it is time to revisit the issue after two near-sinkings in just a bit more than one round the world race for me to date.

The damage to Sanya Lan in the cradle in Motril, Spain

It was only the first morning after the Leg 1 start when the room in front of our forward watertight compartment quickly filled up with water. Fortunately it happened while we were still in “civilized” waters. For sure it would have been harder to limit the damage and keep the boat afloat had it happened mid South Atlantic, in the strong westerlies.

The carbon fiber boats are great – very light and stiff – until the carbon layers start delaminating / breaking. As we experienced in the 08-09 race when we almost sunk with “Ericsson 3” off Taiwan, a quite small puncture to the outer carbon fiber skin will quickly let water pressure explode the layers apart, especially in rough sea state / slamming conditions.

Ericsson 3 in Taiwan, with the damaged area marked out in blue tape

Now it is a very uncommon occurrence that this was to happen to me (and Richard Mason) two times in as many races, but it makes for a bit of re-evaluation of the risk/danger aspect of what we're doing.

Anyway, I never felt physically in danger as we were sailing in the Mediterranean, in daylight, in breezy but manageable conditions, communication systems still working and most of the crew in one piece (Andy man down as he broke his ankle a few hours before).

Falling over board is still my one fear on these boats, as stopping the boat and finding a person in the water at night in rough conditions within reasonable time will always be hard. However, for the period between the two last Volvo Ocean Races I have cycled competitively on the road, and I still feel more vulnerable at the bike than on the boat. But it might of course be because I have done far more miles on the boat and feel more comfortable in that environment. I guess also we spend far more time on the boats..

But to reduce the risk when falling overboard, I will take lots of care to get the life jacket on when appropriate, and try to get into the survival more than I use to. To be honest, I only think I used it once in the last race. It is just a bit of hassle to take it on and off all the time when I go back and forth between the nav station and talking to the guys on deck. I am also using both the VOR supplied R10 AIS personal beacon, and a personal EPIRB just in case.. 

VOR Leg Zero part 1/2

A bit late in the Leg Zero start - or a bit too early by the pin end of the line 2-3 minutes before the start to tack before the others. Credit: Paul Todd/Volvo Ocean Race

My blogging isn’t going well – 5 weeks since the last post. It is just a function of the pace in a Volvo Ocean Race, will try to check in more often until the start.

Last weekend we did the Qualifying Race, or Leg Zero, for this Volvo Ocean Race. This was the first time we lined up against the other boats – first in a couple of in-port laps, then “offshore” from Alicante to Palma de Mallorca and back. We didn’t get the best start, so chased around the first two laps. The breeze was very light and with the small race course we just had to do our best to keep clear air.

The new VO70 rule only allows for two masthead sails, so normally the boats will carry one code zero – upwind or reaching oriented – and one spinnaker type sail – downwind or reaching oriented. For this race at least Camper and Puma seemed to declare proper spinnakers while the rest of the fleet seemed to sail with more reaching oriented sails.

We were left a bit behind on the upwind up the coast to meet the expected northerly Mistral. During the race we had to do some safety drills for VOR Race Management, like Man Over Board drill, use the Emergency Steering System, sail with storm sails and deliver media content. Groupama seemed to have an issue locating or recovering their MOB, so we passed them and had a good fight up the coast where we slowly gained by sailing inside the gradual left shifting breeze.

We missed Moose on Leg Zero due to his appendicitis operation a few days before, but used him for the MOB drill to big amusement onboard

Before the start we had a pretty clear picture that we wanted to sail south of Ibiza which lies on the rhumb line, so as soon as we thought we had “enough” north shift – we started in an easterly breeze – we shot off the coast towards Ibiza. Of course we wouldn’t like to split and loose a good chance of lining up against the opposition, but from our position slightly behind the fleet it was hard to cover them, so we sailed what we believed would be the fastest route.

It soon became clear that Abu Dhabi and us were the only ones heading for the gap between Ibiza and Formentura, with the rest of the fleet sailing north of the islands. Abu Dhabi were leading the fleet and sailed high to get up to the others, while we pushed east in anticipation of the strong easterly shift just after Ibiza that would enable us to sail north towards Palma again. It was too late for us to get north anyway, as we would have to take a loss to get there at that time.

To be continued..

Nice to try out the podium as well, with our 3rd place finish

The Mistral is hard to forecast, at least west of Mallorca, and kicked in much later than forecast and stayed for a shorter time. None of the weather models we looked at for this race was close to the reality, and surely the other navigators will have scratched their heads as much as myself over this. So we chose to sail for the expected changes in the big picture (a high pressure system would move south over us), and what we could see. In the end one model seemed to resolve the situation better than the others, but I will keep that quiet in case the race start will be in similar conditions.

After Ibiza the right shift arrived as expected – with force. In the black night we were auto-tacked by the sudden 90-degrees shift, and ended up with the keel and stack still on the old side, heeled over nicely to 90 degrees until we got it all sorted. A good thing to experience this now and not during the race, damaging one sail and having us limping for a good while afterwards. This probably cost us the miles we were lacking to get in touch with the fleet again by Palma, we were about five miles behind Groupama and Abu Dhabi by Palma.

Our track as displayed by Deckman software, with wind vectors representing wind speed and direction. Northerly breeze sailing to Palma and finally southerly sailing back to the finish in Alicante

Leaving Palma and in the middle of the emergency steering drill, the breeze vanished and the fleet were parking randomly. Some boats seemed to have a clear strategy to sail north of Ibiza again, maybe due to one of the models predicting a northerly push there. We preferred to keep the boat moving in the right direction and keeping the options open for as long as possible, and ended up picking the gap between Ibiza and Formentura again. The more inshore oriented sailors onboard (no offence) complained about the sea state as we were really drifting for most the day in a funny swell, good practice for the race where we will see this several times.

Finally as we were south of Ibiza the breeze filled in from the south west where we were positioned behind Telefonica and Puma. From there on there were no real opportunities, we all sailed into the dying land breeze so the distances just increased. The northerly group finished several hours after us when the sea breeze filled in, except from Abu Dhabi who motored home and will have to complete their qualifier later! I heard a rumor that Puma never did their emergency rudder drill, so they might also have another go J

All in all good practice for us and a good result, nice for the team after all the hard work to get to where we are.

**Mistral is a strong wind from the Alps that strike the Mediterranean quite often. It is normally started by a high pressure in the Bay of Biscay bringing cold air over the mountains. You can read more about it here

**Rhumb line is the direct line between two waypoints.

VOR Safety Course

Had a couple of days “off” in Norway last weekend, then went straight to Newcastle to do the VOR Safety Training. Two very relevant days, made exactly for what we are doing. And even though our safety equipment is the best there is, what one are left with in the end is to not end up in a situation where you need it.

The first day was theory mostly on first aid, and a couple of hours of firefighting. I think most the VOR sailors have experienced some kind of fire onboard, particularly on the electrical system, which makes this quite relevant. But this course isn’t all about being taught what to do, after all the crews possess hands-on experience with most issues. Just as much as going through the syllabus, we discuss solutions to different scenarios and transfer experience between us. We didn’t have any fires during the last race, but a few ones in our preparation that we could sort out by turning the power off. However, Moose had a good one on ABN Amro where the batteries caught fire, which was hard to put out. We now have improved solutions for how to fight such fires.

Moose and Frankie getting their injuries sorted out

The second day was mostly on the use of our safety equipment and life raft, ending up with a few hours in the “environmental” pool with waves, wind, tropical rain, noise and darkness. We did this before the last VOR as well, but it is very good with a refresher. Here we got familiar with setting up our life jackets, turning the life raft from upside down, getting into it, being inside it upside down and maintaining it. In reality, it is going to be quite rough when you have to get in it, so we train for that – getting rid of the water inside it, picking up and treating injured crew members and helicopter rescue.

The most uncomfortable I have been in life (I think!!) is swimming around backwards with the life jacket hood on. I just feel like I can’t breathe through the 6 or so tiny venting holes inside this completely fogged down hood of a tent. It is supposed to protect from breaking waves and heavy rain, but I just feel like I don’t have control of what’s going on around me. But got through it this time as well J

The final exercise this time around was to swim around in the pool with all the “environment” turned on, without the life jacket. Those who got in trouble was picked up by the divers, but we all seemed to be decent swimmers. Of course, it helped that we did this with survival suits on, not being dragged down by the wet weather gear being full of water.

Just sent this link to the instructors of the VOR Safety Course. It is one episode of the documentary on the Norwegian Rescue Services (330 squadron), a helicopter rescue of a Norwegian sailor in the North Sea at winter. Worth a look, but in Norwegian. Strong guy! http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/475709/

Unconscious in the life raft, EPIRB antenna jammed between teeth 

Fastnet Race ticked off

So that was our first race, and actually my first Fastnet Race, came through with no real issues with the boat. Apparently we passed just by the 100-footer Rambler that had capsized just ahead of us in the rough conditions around Fastnet Rock. Given the conditions, no surprise that some boats had issues there, going from a fast reach into upwind to do the little 7 nautical mile beat in 30 solid knots of breeze and a bit of sea state.

We had our own little drama just after the start, tacking out of the Solent, when a port tack Classe 40 did not see us. It looked like it was dipping us, but apparently they had not seen us, so we did a last second evasive crash tack which cost us a lot of speed for a few minutes while we got everything sorted again, and also pushed us over to the side of the Solent with unfavorable tide. On the other side it was running out at four knots.

But we quickly left that behind us and kept improving our stacking routines as we sailed along the coast in anticipation of the big right shift that would arrive early evening. It is a big job to short-tack these boats with all the sails and gear we move from side to side. And as so often happens in sailing, rich got richer and Abu Dhabi pulled out one mile on Groupama who did the same to us. And from there on it was pretty much a drag race out the English coast towards Land's End and the Scilly Islands.

So one of the few tactical options in this race would be how to deal with the high pressure system with a big left shift south east of UK. I thought the high wasn't really as far east as expected, so that we wouldn't get a big wind shift by going far into it, only extending the time sailing away from Fastnet Rock as well as staying for longer in the light breeze to the south. I worked with Mike on the possible options, and we both thought it would be a good idea to tack early to sail a shorter distance towards Fastnet. We had to sail on an unfavorable shift initially, but the shift arrived earlier further north so we quickly started making gains. Of course the others had a slight angle advantage later on to gain some back. Below the official tracks, our in black, Groupama green, Abu Dhabi red. We tacked just between two of the three-hourly VOR position reports. Note our better angle towards Land's End. The other set of tracks are from our way back towards the finish.

Groupama decided to cash in on their Westerly position and reached right down to us, so we were neck and neck again before they pulled out a bit when the breeze increased closer to Fastnet Rock. Both because their boat will be good for that kind of reaching at high speeds, and because we did a quite conservative sail change before the rock.

We actually never saw the capsized Rambler when we passed them, but noticed the presence of rescue boats. From there on it was pretty much straight line sailing at high speeds through the night, our first time real blast reaching together. The boat didn't feel bad, but we sailed conservatively with two reefs and a no 4 jib. The guys on deck used the helmets for the first time, and it wasn't ideal with sun-shaded visors to see the instruments in the middle of the night.

We finished about an hour behind the other two Volvo boats, not bad given the time we have had together and in the boat. Just approaching Solent now on the delivery back to our base in Hamble, have been doing watches with a few guys on deck and most catching up sleep. So have to get on deck to navigate through the Needles.

Fastnet ready?

Fastnet Race is coming up quickly, and it still feels like we got together yesterday. Have been head down all the time since I got here to get my area sorted and ready to sail and measure performance, so strategy and weather work has had to wait. But Fastnet is a great deadline for us to have everything ready. We might not get it all done before the race, but it will become quite apparent during the race what we are missing.

Richard Mason arrived today so it will even be his first time onboard, should be a good experience but he is really only a few sailing days behind the rest of us.

Mike “Lowlife” Quilter is keeping an eye on the weather for me while I am trying to make everything ready for the race, and he says that we will have a moderate upwind start and then reaching back and forth from Land’s End, the exit of the English Channel, to Fastnet Rock. It really looks like a bit of everything, even some heavy beam reaching in 30 knots breeze in a cold front, which will be a good test. We have no pressure on us, the other boats that have spent time sailing should look slick, but we will try to stay in touch.

Tonight, the night before the start, I had a good incentive to improve my weather/strategy system, so I spent a few hours to do some really nice updates that we should benefit from in the early stages of the race. I should probably have been running routes instead, but the big picture looks quite settled and we will be boat on boat from the start, looking for favorable current and breeze on the water. When we put that system together with the performance data we will gather over the next month, we should have a system for navigation / weather / performance half a step further than what I used during the last VOR, and I doubt that anyone else will be any further. Really interesting work!

The race will of course be a good test for all systems, and I doubt we will get through it without issues. It is for example the first time I am running the satellite communications system on the water, we just got it all working together today.

Enough for now, time to pack my bag and get a decent sleep before tomorrow, even have a few jobs to do in the morning. Will try to keep you posted during the race, as much as possible.

First sail on Sanya Lan!

So a busy period, particularly for the shore team that has been here much longer than the sailors, finally led to the launch of the boat, a full-team barbecue at the dock, and the first two days of sailing.

In my area, Rachel Howe has been doing a great job to get the electrics and electronics up running, both in the navigation area with computer and instrument system and on the canting keel control system. Rachel is our ‘sparky’, which means that she works very close with me to make and maintain the navigation systems. Or, as I will be sailing most of the time, have to do a couple of hours in the gym in the mornings and do my small projects to get ready for the race, she is actually doing 95% of it. And being a racing navigator herself, she will also do some of the performance analysis, participate in calibrating instruments etc. An interesting job!

She has, as most of the shore crew, put in very long days for a long time, so probably looking forward to us going away for a few days to sail the Fastnet Race from Sunday on. But until then, all is on to get the boat ready for the race.

We sailed the boat for the first time yesterday, in a bit more breeze than ideal for a test ride with 23-30 knots. So took it pretty easy and spent a while to test the technical systems before we sailed up and down the river to Southampton for a couple of hours while adjusting keel hydraulics and discovering small things that needed changing.

Today however, conditions were great with 15 knots increasing to 23+ meaning we could go out in the Solent and have a look at most of our new sails, which looked good and very interesting! Have a look at the photos! Had time to enjoy it all and keep an eye on how the deck systems work – including making an override at one occasion. Rachel staying below deck to look after the systems while the legendary navigator Mike Quilter who is our “weather man” came out sailing and could cover my crew role while I navigated, calibrated and trial-run the data logging systems.

Tomorrow we’ll go for an overnighter as a qualifier for the Fastnet, and to get hours in the boat. Quite quick progress!

Team Sanya and new blog!

My involvement with Team Sanya for the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race went public today, so it is a good time to get going with some blogging again. I hope to be able to keep updating, but any minute I can use to get us and myself better prepared for the race I’ll use for that, so I may be a bit on/off on the blogging consistency.

I have been in Hamble, England with the team for 10 days now, and the feeling so far is really good. Of course we haven’t sailed the boat yet, and I haven’t sailed with most of the guys before, so the main impressions are still to come. Have to say though, that it would really surprise me if we don’t keep the good stuff going.

After the last Volvo finished a bit more than two years ago, I have been sort of half time sailing. I had a good break, caught up on the social side, got back in good physical shape again and did quite a bit of analysis work on weather and performance. One upside of being a navigator, is that for some projects one can work from everywhere these days, as long as the laptop is functioning. Then of course I have slowly gotten more and more into sailing again. Did a bit of sailing with Groupama the winter after the Volvo finish, then a maxi project in the Mediterranean with amongst others Bouwe Bekking and Jens Dolmer last summer, and a race on “Saudade”, the 148-foot Wally, this year. One month ago I did my first proper offshore race since the Volvo, Transatlantic Race 2011, which we won. I could go on and brag about how we did that, but the joy from that went away when one of the crew became seriously ill a couple of days after the race. But good know that I am still on decent form..

I came out of the last Volvo with a sort of crushed knee and right leg, and used road cycling a lot to recover from that. I had done some racing in 2007, and really enjoy the sport, with the fitness and tactical perspectives. It just rolled on, and last winter I cycled almost full-time to see what level I could get to, and did some elite races of the Norwegian road cycling circuit this spring before the sailing season kicked in.

After the Volvo, and particularly after the training with Groupama, I realized that to enjoy the sailing I needed to be more hungry than I was, and planned to sit this Volvo out and rather work on the weather with a team as well as doing some work on my own project. However when Mike S contacted me I gave it a serious think as I was already getting quite into full time sailing again, and after the Transatlantic Race I was convinced, so I am going 110% for it now.

There are some aspects to this project that are quite different from last time around (when I was a part of Ericsson’s two-boat campaign). Obviously Mike Sanderson puts weight to it, he is one of the most respected skippers around. I have done pretty much all of my sailing “on my own” in the navigation area, particularly E3 in the last VOR where Magnus Olsson, the final skipper, was part of the watch system and as such didn’t work with me in the nav station. I know that Mike is quite different there, and will get involved, which should keep developing my skills further. I actually really like to work with others, so it will be nice to have someone to play ideas with, or to get critique from. The rumor is also that Mike doesn’t sleep much, which would be good news for me! Fighting sleep deprivation is one challenge for navigators, and given that we will be alternating to use the same bunk, this can open up the opportunity to get a bit more sleep than last time. In my dreams...

Not to say that he is the only one onboard, but I will get back to that another time. For now, all the guys both on the sailing team and the shore team are really switched on, and want to make this a successful campaign.

I knew that this would turn into the longest blog post ever, so will try to start rounding it off..

Further, we are going to be sailing with a boat that sailed around before, and maybe didn't shine as much as some other boats in that race. I didn’t like this initially, but now that has turned more into a challenge of developing ourselves, the sails and the boat into challenging the other boats when opportunities arrive, and show what we are capable of doing with the starting package we are given.

But at the moment, the boat is not the real handicapping factor for us, as it is only 80 days or so until the start of the race, and we have never sailed together before. So we just have to get sailing, be super-efficient and try to be clever around the sails to get it right with little testing time. One thing is for sure, one are never going to be bored in this campaign! We will be learning every day.

I’ll be back with more soon, now 6 hours till the rig goes in, so better get some sleep. Thanks for reading this far!!   And now that I am official, I can start posting on twitter again.     www.twitter.com/akselmagdahl