Dongfeng Race Team broke their mast early on Monday (GMT, March 30) but nobody has been injured and there is no immediate danger to the crew (adds more detail, video, full story below).- Chinese team heading for safety in Argentina- See the dramatic breakage video from the boat hereALICANTE, Spain, March 30 – Dongfeng Race Team broke their mast early on Monday (GMT, March 30) but nobody has been injured and there is no immediate danger to the crew.The incident happened 240 nautical miles west of Cape Horn at 0315 UTC on Monday, in the final hours of the night local time onboard Dongfeng.The crew reported that the mast broke above the third spreader, the top section of the mast.They are not planning to continue racing on this leg and are heading towards Ushuaia, Argentina, under sail, via the Beagle Channel, as their eventual destination before Itajaí.Reached via Inmarsat, a disappointed skipper Charles Caudrelier said: “I’m gutted. As you’ve seen from the position reports we have been, on purpose, backing off a bit, not attacking in any way.“The mast broke without warning, in about 30 knots of wind. We are unable to sail safely on starboard tack, but we are able to make reasonable speed on port tack. We will head towards Ushuaia and assess our options for getting to Itajaí.”The Dongfeng crew is now making headway to the entrance of the Beagle Channel, a strait on the extreme southern tip of South America. They are aiming for the entrance of Bahia Cook bay.The team, who were joint top of the standings with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) at the start of Leg 5, will probably reach the entrance of the Beagle Channel at night, which is a tricky approach.Alicante Race Control is providing navigational support. Should they decide to go to Strait of Magellan, Race Control will provide additional information too.Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) are 425 nautical miles behind them.The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) is aware of the situation and is on standby to help if necessary.The Volvo Ocean Race is in constant contact with Caudrelier and are establishing the full extent of the damage to ensure they give him the support he needs to deal with the situation.

via LATEST: Dongfeng Race Team breaks mast, crew safe| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Volvo Ocean Race can confirm that Dongfeng Race Team broke its mast early on Monday (GMT, March 30) but fortunately nobody has been injured and there is no immediate danger to the crew (full story below).

The incident happened 240 nautical miles west of Cape Horn at 0315 UTC on Monday, in the final hours of the night onboard Dongfeng.

The crew reported that the mast broke above the third spreader, the top section of the mast. They are not planning to continue racing on this leg and are heading towards Ushuaia, Argentina, under their own sail.

Reached via Inmarsat, a disappointed skipper Charles Caudrelier said: “I’m gutted. As you’ve seen from the position reports we have been, on purpose, backing off a bit, not attacking in any way.

“The mast broke without warning, in about 30 knots of wind. We are unable to sail safely on starboard tack, but we are able to make reasonable speed on port tack. We will head towards Ushuaia and assess our options for getting to Itajaí.”

The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) is aware of the situation and is on standby to help if necessary.

We are in constant contact with Caudrelier and are establishing the full extent of the damage to ensure we give him the support he needs to deal with the situation.

We will give more information as it becomes available.

via Dongfeng Race Team breaks mast, crew safe| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet in the wild Southern Ocean was fighting two battles on Sunday – for bragging rights to lead the fleet round Cape Horn, and the race to win Leg 5 (full story below).

– Team Alvimedica lead fleet towards Cape Horn

– Leg 5 bragging rights still up for grabs

– Follow all the action of the Cape Horn rounding tomorrow

ALICANTE, SPAIN, March 29 – The Volvo Ocean Race fleet in the wild Southern Ocean was fighting two battles on Sunday – for bragging rights to lead the fleet round Cape Horn, and the race to win Leg 5.

The first will be decided between Monday afternoon and evening and the other around April 5-6 in Itajaí, south-east Brazil, after three weeks of unprecedented, close-quarter racing.

The outcome of both contests is impossible to predict although the Turkey/USA crew of Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA) are currently narrow favourites as they led a group of five boats at 1240 UTC on Sunday.

Should Enright’s crew achieve either, it would be a major achievement for a team that is the youngest in the race and led by a 30-year-old Volvo Ocean Race first-timer who first dreamed of entering a team on the film set of the Disney movie, Morning Light some eight years ago.

They certainly can take neither achievement for granted. Early on Sunday, they led by just 4.1nm from MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP), with Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA), Dutch crew Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) and overall race leaders, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR), up to 8.2nm further adrift.

It is anyone’s to win.

To add to the plot, conditions in the Southern Ocean continue to be super testing with winds of some 45 miles an hour (73 kilometres an hour) and waves likely to approach 10 metres (30 feet).

And the latest forecast promises no let up once the fleet has rounded the Horn and moved into the final stage of a thrilling leg up the Brazilian coast through the south Atlantic to Itajaí.

Enright gave a taste of the relentless pressure on board as his crew battled to stay ahead of the fleet and also steer through the worst of the weather.

“I think everyone will remember today for the rest of their lives,” he reported in a message to shore after crossing ahead of Spanish rival MAPFRE, during a skirmish for the lead on Saturday.

“It was completely insane – very little sleep, moving sails every hour. All the boats knew where you had to be to be ahead, but the problem is not everybody can be there at once. So it was a real fight.”

Enright will not be alone in remembering this leg for the rest of his life.

The boats have avoided some huge icebergs on the route so far after Cyclone Pam kept them waiting three extra days in Auckland at the start and three of them crashed to their sides mid-week in so-called ‘Chinese gybes’.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR), suffered the most serious damage with a broken fractional code zero (FRO) sail, which has hampered them significantly in such challenging conditions.

At 1240 UTC, they trailed the main pack by just under 300nm. Navigator Libby Greenhalgh (GBR) described their experience on board in a blog from the boat on Sunday.

“Life on board is like being in a cold, damp car with no windows while someone is learning to drive, bunny-hopping down the road or practising their emergency stops,” she wrote.

“When we hit a wave and the water ploughs over the top, it does so with such force that the water finds its way into the boat through every little nook and cranny. So much so that it felt like it was raining on us one day in the galley!”

The fleet has just passed the halfway mark of the race in terms of legs completed. In all, they will sail nine legs, visit 11 ports, and every continent. The event, staged once every three years, will conclude in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 27.

via ‘It’s completely insane’| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet, battered but unbroken as they battle through the Southern Ocean, face the toughest 48 hours of the nine-month marathon as they approach Cape Horn on Monday (see full story below).

– Storm chasing fleet to Cape Horn

– ‘I’ve never known it so close,’ says under-pressure Caudrelier

– All you need to know about Cape Horn below

ALICANTE, Spain, March 28 (Reuters) – The Volvo Ocean Race fleet, battered but unbroken as they battle through the Southern Ocean, face the toughest 48 hours of the nine-month marathon as they approach Cape Horn on Monday.

The region is the only time in the 38,738-nautical mile race where the boats are likely to see icebergs, despite the ice limits set by organisers, and a huge storm is building up behind to chase them on their way (see details here).

Early on Saturday (0640 UTC), the Chinese boat Dongfeng Race Team, skippered by Frenchman Charles Caudrelier, led the leg from Auckland to Itajaí, Brazil, but by less than 10nm from four other crews.

Caudrelier admitted that the stress has become “wearing’ on his eight-man team.

“I think it’s unique in the history of the Volvo Ocean Race (launched in 1973) to have a fleet battling like this in these latitudes,” he wrote in his blog on Saturday.

“Tomorrow, we’ll be even further south and the water temperature is going to drop. I’m expecting the hardest part of this race in the next 48 hours.”

Dongfeng were one of three boats to crash over on their sides midway through the Southern Ocean on the 6,776nm leg – a so-called ‘Chinese gybe’.

Thankfully, all the crews avoided anything more serious than cuts and bruises and damage to boats have been repaired on the move.

After some 3,000nm miles of sailing in the toughest leg of the race, Dongfeng lead by just 5.1nm from Dutch boat Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) with overall leaders Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR), MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) and Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA) no more than 4nm further adrift.

The all women’s crew of Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) were nearly 100nm behind that pack, but gaining all the time in stronger winds.

They and MAPFRE also suffered Chinese gybes on Tuesday. The leg is expected to conclude around April 5-6 after three weeks of sailing from New Zealand.

In all, the boats will sail nine legs and visit 11 ports. They finish the race on June 27 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Everything you need to know about Cape Horn

They said it: Cape Horn “is enough to make a landsman dream for a week about shipwrecks, peril and death” – Charles Darwin.

Something to write home about. Cape Horn, close to the southern-most tip of South America, is regarded by sailors as the most iconic and feared landmark in the world.

What makes it so challenging? It’s cold, it’s bleak and it’s dangerous. It’s home to biblical storms and gale force winds, making visibility difficult. Lying just 500 miles from Antarctica, look out for the odd iceberg too.

Making history. The first to make it around was Dutch mariner Willem Schouten, who named it after Hoorn, his hometown in the north of the Netherlands.

Only the toughest. Even today, more people have reached the summit of Everest than have sailed around Cape Horn.

Middle of nowhere. The need for ships to round Cape Horn was greatly reduced by the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, which makes a modern-day visit there even more special. There are no commercial routes around the Horn, and modern ships are rarely seen.

Location, location, location. Set your sat nav to 55°58′48″S 067°17′21″W.

Lest we forget. On Hoorn island, there’s a large sculpture by Chilean artist José Balcells featuring an albatross in remembrance of the sailors who died while attempting to round the Horn.

Rich traditions. Sailors celebrate a successful rounding of Cape Horn in many ways, including lighting up cigars and pouring a small bottle of alcohol into the sea to toast those who didn’t make it, and thank King Neptune for a safe passage.

Waves bigger than houses. The strong winds of the Southern Ocean mean equally large waves, and, free of any interruption from land, these waves roll at a great height, some even 30m tall. But south of the Horn, the waves become shorter and steeper, which can be a nightmare for passing boats.

Gold rush. During the 1800s, Cape Horn was deemed so dangerous that the Spanish dragged their plundered gold across land rather than risk shipping it around the landmark. The current has thrown many sailors and ships onto the rocks.

Permanent reminders. Those who have successfully made it around the landmark are entitled to wear a gold hoop earring in whichever ear passed closest to Cape Horn. Also, if you see someone with a tattoo of a full-rigged ship, give him a pat on the back. According to maritime tradition, it means he’s been around the Horn!

via Battered but unbroken| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet reached the halfway point of their nine-month marathon – midway through the fifth leg of nine – on Friday and were still glued together in some of the closest racing in the event’s 41-year history (full story below plus facts and figures from the first half of the way and a selection of our best pictures so far).

– Fleet reaches halfway mark on Leg 5

– See our pick of best pictures so far above

– Halfway round: Facts and figures below

ALICANTE, Spain, March 27 – The Volvo Ocean Race fleet reached the halfway point of their nine-month marathon – midway through the fifth leg of nine – on Friday and were still glued together in some of the closest racing in the event’s 41-year history.

For those on shore, the day offered the chance to take stock following a dramatic week in which three boats suffered Chinese gybes, but for the crews it was business as usual as they tussled head-to-head approaching the key landmark of Cape Horn.

At 1240 UTC, just 7.7 nautical miles (nm) separated the first five boats with Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) bringing up the rear, some 80nm further adrift (see panel above).

Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) must think they are on some kind of Southern Ocean crazy rollercoaster.

On Tuesday, they were part of the trio of boats – MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) and Team SCA were the others – to crash over on their sides in a so-called Chinese gybe.

But, remarkably, all the crews managed to right themselves without overly serious damage to either sailor or boat and within 48 hours of the incidents, Dongfeng Race Team found themselves at the head of the fleet.

This was no time to take it easy, however, for anyone.

The 1240 UTC position report on Friday showed the Chinese boat had lost pressure again and slipped back to fifth place behind new leaders, MAPFRE, with Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/U.S.), Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) sandwiched in between.

All was certainly not lost for Caudrelier and his crew, however, with MAPFRE virtually within view.

For Dongfeng’s helmsman, Damian Foxall (IRL), it has already been a memorable ride, after being called up to sail just this 6,779nm leg.

“It is hard to describe the stress on board after the Chinese gybe – ‘is everyone here, is anything damaged?’ Yet three hours later, incredibly, we were back on track,” he wrote in a blog.

Sam Davies, skipper of Team SCA, was also in a reflective mood early on Friday.

“It has been a hard few days; full of emotion, stress, adrenaline,” she wrote in her blog.

“As skipper it is hard to find the balance between pushing the boat and crew, but making sure we stay safe and keeping our boat in one piece.

“Out here, there is little margin for error. I feel like we have found our limits, and proved to ourselves that we are pushing hard.

“We suffered from our wipeout with the damage we sustained and it is frustrating to lose the miles like that, but we are slowly getting back to as near 100 per cent as possible.”

The fleet is expected to reach Cape Horn on Sunday, and then their Leg 5 destination, Itajaí in south-eastern Brazil, around April 4.

The race, with four and a half legs still to negotiate and six more ports to visit, remains too close to call, with the two overall leaders, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Dongfeng Race Team, fighting it on a level eight points apiece, and currently just 4.8nm apart.

Welcome to one-design racing!

Halfway way round: Facts and figures from 4.5 legs of 9

In the five months since this race left Alicante, the fleet has visited Alicante, Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya and Auckland. Now, they’re in the toughest arena of all – the Southern Ocean – winging their way towards Itajaí.

That’s a lot of miles sailed.

30,346 nautical miles sailed so far for Team SCA

30,050 nautical miles sailed so far for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing

29,967 nautical miles sailed so far for Dongfeng Race Team

30,301 nautical miles sailed so far for Team Brunel

30,153 nautical miles sailed so far for Team Alvimedica

30,327 nautical miles sailed so far for MAPFRE

11,803 nautical miles sailed so far for Team Vestas Wind

Lost property

1 food cooler lost overboard on Team Alvimedica

1 drone lost on Dongfeng Race Team

A lot of hours lost in the Doldrums!

New experiences

4 Chinese sailors given their first taste of offshore life

23 pollywogs became shellbacks

18 birthdays celebrated at sea

2 Thanksgiving parties

Plenty of Valentine’s Day love

The world is watching

Nearly 51 million minutes watched on the Volvo Ocean Race Youtube channel.

A cumulative TV audience of over 1 billion people around the world.

Over one million views on The Inside Track.

Close shaves

3 Chinese gybes

2 crazy cyclones avoided

1 epic salvage mission

…which reached over 3 million people on Facebook alone.

Landmarks

10,923 emails sent from the boats to Alicante Race Control

3 oceans crossed.

3 Equator crossings.

4 different In-Port Race winners.

Over 15,000 hours of spectactular sailing completed.

That’s 54 million seconds of concentration, focus and intensity, 3,750 watch changes and 5,000 freeze-dried meal times.

And a few knocks picked up along the way

1 perforated eardrum

1 ruptured herniated disc

1 broken hand, 1 broken bone in hand

2 ribs broken, 2 ribs cracked

A LOT of painkillers and bandages

And a LOT of fun had by all!

Join us for the next half of the toughest ocean race on the planet! Don’t miss out – follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

via Southern Ocean rollercoaster| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA), almost literally knocked off their feet just 48 hours earlier, retook the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 5 lead on Thursday (see full story below).

– Dongfeng Race Team fights back again to grab lead

– Five of six boats bunched within seven nautical miles

– Follow all the action hour by hour on our App

ALICANTE, Spain, March 26 – Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA), almost literally knocked off their feet just 48 hours earlier, retook the Volvo Ocean Race Leg 5 lead on Thursday.

The Chinese boat was one of three to crash on their sides in so-called Chinese gybes on Tuesday as a heightened sea state and 40 knots of wind (75 kilometres per hour) played havoc with the fleet.

MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) and Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) suffered similar setbacks though, mercifully, none of the sailors involved were injured in the incidents and all boats are now sailing normally.

As they have proved time and time again in the race, Caudrelier’s men react only positively to such setbacks.

In Leg 4, their mast track needed an on-the-move repair for the third time in the race, yet they still recovered for third place in Auckland.

On Thursday morning (0940 UTC), while the overnight leaders were becalmed in a rare spell of respite from the brutal Southern Ocean conditions, Dongfeng Race Team found excellent pressure to make up 24 nautical miles (nm) in a three-hour period and move from fifth to first.

Their lead, however, is still paper-thin in relative terms over the course of a 6,777nm, three-week leg from New Zealand to the south-east Brazilian port city of Itajaí.

The fleet still has the notorious Cape Horn to negotiate, probably towards the end of the coming weekend, and then the south Atlantic in the run-in to Brazil next week.

They are currently expected to arrive around April 4.

Dongfeng’s Onboard Reporter, Yann Riou (FRA), not surprisingly, says that morale is sky high after taking the lead for the first time since the fleet left Auckland on March 18 – despite the challenges they are facing every hour.

“We have regular squalls interrupting us. It’s a constant switch between long periods of great surfing under blue skies and sunshine, and then intense periods of manoeuvres, often in the rain. Reef in, reef out, furl, unfurl,” he wrote in a blog from the boat.

“The atmosphere onboard is excellent, but it will be even better once Cape Horn is behind us.”

The Chinese boat is ideally placed in both the leg and the race. The team shared the overall lead before setting out for Leg 5 with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR), both on eight points from four legs.

The Emirati boat, however, had a sliver-thin advantage courtesy of a superior in-port series record.

Caudrelier and his crew can hardly rest on their laurels on Leg 5.

At 0940 UTC on Thursday, the first five boats were all within seven miles of each other, with Team Alvimedica (Charlie Enright/USA), Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED), Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and MAPFRE leading the chase (see panel above).

Team SCA were the fastest in the fleet over the early hours of Thursday, chopping huge chunks off their earlier deficit following Tuesday’s Chinese gybe.

They trailed the pack by some 86nm at 0940 UTC, but were gaining all the time in relatively strong pressure.

We could yet see a completely bunched fleet negotiating Cape Horn.

via Back from the brink| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Volvo Ocean Race’s fleet passed over Point Nemo* on Wednesday – the furthest spot in the oceans from land – on the day that a new ice limit was introduced by organisers to keep the boats clear of ice bergs (full story plus info below).

– Fleet passes over most remote spot from land

– The fine art of finding ice bergs explained

– MAPFRE recovers from Chinese gybe to take lead

– Check out our latest video on ice limits here

ALICANTE, Spain, March 25 – Volvo Ocean Race’s fleet passed over Point Nemo* on Wednesday – the furthest from land you can get when at sea– on the day that a new ice limit was introduced by organisers to keep the boats clear of a large iceberg that was drifting towards the path of the fleet

The race has been using the services of a Toulouse-based company, CLS, to advise on the placing of the ice limits**.

Leg 5, which routes the fleet through the Southern Ocean on a 6,776-nautical mile (nm) stage from Auckland to Itajaí, Brazil, has kept the race advisers particularly busy.

“So far, we’ve detected about 20 icebergs,” said CLS’s Franck Mercier (http://www.cls.fr/en).

So how exactly do you find one? CLS uses a lot of different data and up to four satellites for that.

First, the sea temperature. The colder the water, the more likely they are to find drifting ice. Currents affect this too, pushing it all around the Southern Ocean.

Secondly, the historical data CLS that has gathered these past few years – they have been assisting several sailing races in the Southern Ocean, including the Vendée Globe and the Barcelona World Race.

And finally, the radar techniques.

CLS is working with space agencies, using their satellites to scan the sea surface in search of ice.

They use altimetry techniques (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altimeter#Satellites) to draft a first exclusion zone, and SAR imagery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_aperture_radar) to target the areas identified as potentially dangerous and scan them thoroughly.

Altimetry only spots the biggest icebergs, that is those bigger than 300m. SAR imagery is much more precise, every standard image covering a 500km x 500km area. SAR satellite sensors can detect smaller bits of ice – up to 50m in the case of a high-resolution picture. That is as accurate as it gets.

“Remember it’s not an exact science,” added Mercier, a French researcher who knows the icebergs by name. “We’re contributing to decrease the risks, but we don’t suppress it.

“The idea is to detect the biggest icebergs to anticipate the position of the smaller ones, which are still very dangerous for the boats, all of this part of the ocean dynamic.”

Their biggest catch this time around? A one-kilometre long iceberg, first spotted because of a cold water plume, then ‘photographed’ three times.

Mercier and his colleagues have done the calculations – it is 150m wide, 300m high, underwater part included, and it weighs 25 millions tons, the equivalent of 50 super tankers.

And the current was pushing it north at 1.1 knots, straight towards the fleet’s predicted position.

So they warned Race Management, who moved the ice limits north last week. They can change one of the points of this virtual line no later than 30 degrees of longitude before the first boat reaches it.

“There’s definitely plenty of ice around,” commented Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s navigator Simon Fisher.

His boat is currently 2,000 nm away from land – they simply cannot afford to run into drifting ice. In 2001-02, News Corp sailed through ice and it is not something the sailors recall fondly. (http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/7254_Roaring-Forties-chapter-25-Terror-in-the-Southern-Ocean.html)

“All the blue dots are icebergs that have been picked up by the various radars. So far they’re doing a good job at keeping us out of it.”

** Ice limits: 
A virtual line the fleet must leave to starboard, it can be modified by Race Management depending on the movement of the ice in the southern part of the globe. An imaginary point has been placed every five degrees, drawing a precise contour that can be adapted.

Ice limit changes on March 25:

Leg 5 Sailing Instructions Amendment 8 has been posted and communicated to the fleet – waypoints 11 and 12 have been moved further north after the detection of a new iceberg close to the ice limit line had been confirmed, between 95 W and 100 W.

Meanwhile, MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) led the fleet over Point Nemo on Wednesday after an amazing recovery from their Chinese gybe just 24 hours earlier.

They were one of three boats – Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) and Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) were the others – to crash over on their side as the fleet struggled through a heinous sea state and 40 knots of wind (75kph) in the Southern Ocean.

See panel above for latest positions.

via We’ve found Nemo!| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Here are eight key facts about Point Nemo*:

What’s in a name? The most remote point in the ocean lies in the Southern Ocean and is known as ‘Point Nemo’, or the ‘Pole of Inaccessibility’.

It’s not named after stripey cartoon fish. In fact, the name ‘Nemo’ comes from Captain Nemo, a character in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea — not the film Finding Nemo.

Don’t expect to find a gift shop. Point Nemo isn’t an actual ‘point’ as there’s no land there — it’s simply a spot in the ocean that happens to be 2,688 kilometres (or 1,450nm) from the nearest land.

And even that land isn’t exactly welcoming. It’s called Ducie Island, part of the Pitcairn Islands to the north, and it’s an un-inhabited, C-shaped strip of land with a diameter stretching hardly two kilometres.

Don’t forget to look up! If you pass Point Nemo at the right time of day, you’ll be closer to the astronauts in the International Space Station some 400km up in space, than any other humans on earth.

In Latin, ‘Nemo’ translates as ‘no man’ – which pretty much sums up how bleak this part of the world is.

Back to the 90s. In 1992, a Croatian-Canadian survey engineer called Hrvoje Lukatela used a geospatial computer programme to find Point Nemo. He figured that because the Earth is three-dimensional, its most remote ocean point must sit the same distance away from three nearest coastlines.

Make sure you pack your map. Point Nemo is based at 48°52.6′ south, 123°23.6′ west.

via We’ve found Nemo!| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

Four of the six Volvo Ocean Race boats suffered big hits as the Southern Ocean gave the fleet its roughest ride of the race in 12 dramatic hours (full story below).

– Three boats in fleet suffer ‘Chinese gybes’

– Near wipe-out too for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing

– Stay up to date with all the news on our App

ALICANTE, Spain, March 24 – Four of the six Volvo Ocean Race boats suffered big hits as the Southern Ocean gave the fleet its roughest ride of the race in 12 dramatic hours.

Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR), Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) and MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) did Chinese gybes* from Monday to Tuesday but all three crews escaped injury despite the boats toppling over.

Damage was still being assessed in the aftermath of the incidents although Dongfeng Race Team appeared to have avoided any serious problems with the boat.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker/GBR) also endured a drama-filled night, reporting a “night of two gybes: a wild one in pitch black with a massive wipe-out and then a ‘controlled’ one at 30 knots”.

Dongfeng Race Team were first to reveal a Chinese gybe, with their Onboard Reporter Yann Riou (FRA) reporting: “It took two to three hours to sort out the mess, the boat was on her side, we took 300 litres of water in to the boat through an air vent.”

Then Team SCA were similarly upended at around 0500 UTC, the all-women team’s Onboard Reporter, Anna-Lena Elled (SWE), reported.

“We ended up on the side for maybe two to four minutes before slowly getting back in the right position,” she told Race HQ.

The crew was assessing the damage and already starting to effect some repairs, Elled continued.

MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP) also reported a third Chinese gybe, which happened around 2000 UTC. There was no immediate news from the Spanish boat regarding damage.

All four boats were still able to continue sailing.

The Emirati boat still recovered to move within eight nautical miles (nm) of leaders Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking/NED) with MAPFRE in third, 26nm further adrift. Team SCA lost 38nm with their struggles to fall 97.9nm behind the leaders (see panel above).

* Click here for an example of a Chinese gybe in 2008-09.

via Wild night in the Southern Ocean| Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015.

UPDATE: The RS200 Class Association and RS Sailing have joined forces to update the RS200, 19 years since the launch of one of the most successful modern classes, with competitive racing at club, circuit and championship level.

The aim was to update the RS200 while retaining the one-design performance, crew range and the handling enjoyed by so many sailors.

The most visible change is to the sails, with a radial cut clear Mylar mainsail replacing the original cross cut white sail. The jib also changes to a radial cut lower section and the spinnaker becomes tri-radial to match and to increase longevity through improved load paths.

Subtle changes have also been made to the hull. Under the surface, the internal structure is now constructed from foam cored GRP laminate, replacing the old plywood construction. This is said to reduce the weight of the structure, allowing the laminate strength to be increased in historically vulnerable areas without any overall weight difference.

The RS200 was originally designed with a square running system for the asymmetric spinnaker. Usage proved minimal and most of the equipment had been removed from the spec, but a complicated bowsprit system remained. This has now been tidied up, with a simple bowsprit set in a recessed foredeck channel which is said to also add form stiffness and saves weight for better use elsewhere.

The two parties say recessing the pole means a full width spinnaker chute can be fitted, with a larger mouth to reduce sail loading and distortion resulting from hoists and drops.

via Boating Business – New look RS200.