Camper team says Volvo trackers are giving totally wrong readings

On day ten of Leg Three CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand has begun the long beat to Sanya with CAMPER heading for the Vietnam coast and a building monsoon weather system that will deliver strong head winds and steep seas.

After closing up on the frontrunners yesterday CAMPER has stayed in striking distance overnight.

This differs from the data being displayed by the Volvo Ocean Race tracker which is currently not giving an accurate picture of the situation on the water and appears to be having some telemetry issues. For example the last four schedule reports from Volvo have shown CAMPER dropping 133 miles on the leader despite having very similar boat speed and conditions.

This has led to some confusion but latest reports from on the boat confirm them as being only 30 to 35 miles behind third placed Puma not 142 miles as suggested by the Volvo tracker, and 50 to 60 miles off the lead not 200 as suggested by the Volvo tracker.

With the fleet heading for the Vietnam coast and into a developing weather front they face a tactical decision of whether to head in close or stay further out to sea. The coastal route is higher risk/higher reward offering the potential of much better breeze strength and angle, but also the risk of strong currents, wind shadow and obstructions such as fishing boats and nets. The offshore option is less complicated and lower risk but generally does not offer the potential large gains that inshore does.

CAMPER Skipper Chris Nicholson says that they as they head into strong head winds they are weighing up the constant issue of how hard they can push the boat.

 “In a decent blow the difference between pushing the boat that little harder or not could easily equate to the 30 odd miles of ground that Puma currently has over us. But it could also equate to the difference between a leg ending breakage or not so it’s a pretty fine balancing act.

“We’ve got plenty of confidence in this boat though and a lot of hard upwind miles behind us so we’re relatively comfortable with the type of conditions that are coming up.

“We just need to keep on chipping away, sailing fast, not making any mistakes and taking any opportunities that are presented to us.

“There’s still 900 miles of racing ahead of us in this leg and we need to make the most of every one of them.”

CAMPER in the latest position report at 1500h 1 February NZT is averaging 12.3 knots in a 13 knot north easterly.

- ETNZ Media

The latest video from onboard CAMPER is here http://etnzblog.com/#!2012/02/video-we-need-to-sail-better-and-we-need-to-sail-faster