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7:39 AM Sat 25 Apr 2009 GMT
After 23 days in the Leg 3 stop over port of Ilhabela, Brazil, the seven skippers in the Portim?o Global Ocean Race are keen to get back on the water. The reception that the competitors and race organisation team have received from the people of this small tropical island has been breathtaking, but the serious business of yacht racing will now temporarily break the profound bond that has formed between the islanders and the ocean racing interlopers.
With the start of 4,800 mile Leg 4 to Charleston, South Carolina, scheduled for 1500 UTC (1200 local) this Saturday, the official engagements for the skippers are now complete. On Thursday morning, the teams gathered beneath an awning at the event's race base in the Yacht Club de Ilhabela (YCI) for the formal skippers briefing. Race Director, Josh Hall, swiftly moved through the business of the day: start line procedure off the town of Vila; commercial shipping movements throughout start day in the channel between Ilhabela and the Brazilian mainland; the scoring gate location; the final approach to Charleston and the activation of each boat's satellite tracking beacon.
Hall also congratulated the teams on the close racing throughout the event and the extraordinary finish line scramble between Leg 3 winner, Desafio Cabo de Hornos, and second place Beluga Racer separated by 52 minutes after 7,500 miles and 40 days at sea. It is proving increasingly difficult to suppress the spirit of the seven skippers - even in the restrained atmosphere of a formal meeting - and as Hall mentioned the race points ranking system with the possibility of an overall win by the Chilean team on Desafio Cabo de Hornos if they can win both the final two legs and snatch the maximum two scoring gate points from the German points leader, Beluga Racer, the briefing dissolved into good natured banter. With the potential of the British duo on Team Mowgli further complicating the leaderboard by taking a second place in the next leg, Chilean skipper, Felipe Cubillos, produced a tattered, salt-stained wallet and slid a wad of brightly coloured, Brazilian banknotes across the table to British co-skippers, Jeremy Salvesen and David Thomson. Sitting directly opposite Felipe Cubillos, the German double-handers rifled through their backpacks for a suitable bribe.
The joking and backslapping continued throughout Thursday, culminating in an informal farewell party hosted by Fabio Negrini at his popular restaurant, Max Paladar, a short distance south along the coast from the YCI in the town of Perequ?. On Friday morning - with 24 hours to the Leg 4 start - the mood is more controlled. Battle flags and sponsor banners have been removed from spinnaker halyards; Gerry cans of fuel and containers of water are heaped around the pontoons; friends and families of the teams are helping with final preparations to the yachts and co-skippers constantly drift into the race media centre to check weather files online.
Current weather files suggest the breeze at the start of the leg tomorrow will be 10-15 knots from the west with a low pressure system centred 150 miles south-east of Ilhabela. Over the first 24 hours of racing, the low pressure system will deepen and move in a south-westerly direction with winds of 5-10 knots from WNW as the fleet approach Cape Frio. After approximately 72 hours, faster conditions should be found with the breeze turning south or south-westerly at 15-20 knots.
www.portimaoglobaloceanrace.com
by Oliver Dewar
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Sailing
