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After a long hiatus, The Ocean Race is back, but this year, as reported by Yvonne Gordon of the Guardian, while dodging icebergs, cracking masts and suffering the occasional ‘hull sandwich failure’, the teams are gathering crucial data from places even research vessels rarely reach.
The Southern Ocean is not somewhere most people choose to spend an hour, let alone a month. Circling the icy continent of Antarctica, it is the planet’s wildest and most remote ocean. Point Nemo, just to the north in the South Pacific, is the farthest location from land on Earth, 1,670 miles (2,688km) away from the closest shore. The nearest humans are generally those in the International Space Station when it passes overhead.
But, four sailing teams came through that part of the world, part of the marathon race round the bottom of the Earth, from Cape Town in South Africa to Itajaí in Brazil.
By the time these 18-metre (60ft) Imoca monohull sailing yachts neared Point Nemo, the five sailors on each boat had already been at sea for 23 days, with another two weeks to go before they reach port in early April. And this is just leg three, the longest portion of the even longer Ocean Race, a 32,000-nautical-mile dash around the world that started in January and finishes in July.
Competition is fierce and racing is close, even after three weeks at sea. Boat speeds on leg three so far have been up to 40.5 knots, the equivalent of gale force winds, and the vessels have, subject to ratification, broken the 24-hour distance record multiple times. The crews survive on freeze-dried food (rehydrated with hot water from a kettle, there’s no kitchen), and operate a four-hour alternating watch system. Nobody gets much sleep. The toilet is a bucket…
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