I've been watching the videos of this race both on YouTube and from their website www.volvooceanrace.org/multimedia/video-gallery/ and I get the feeling of watching a car wreck slowly unfolding.
These boats are brutal. I mean brutal!!! At speed (over 20 knots) on deck, the boat is underwater. On watch means constant firehose spray .... there is nowhere to hide.
Imagine steering a boat doing mid 20's in the pitch black. Insane!! and these guys do it day in and day out. The law of averages says there will be one day ... one wave train where you get it wrong.
The wind gets up to 40 knots and the boats look to be under control 95% of the time but the other 5% is utter mayhem. Puma reports that at one hour they pitchpole so violently that they break the prodder and shred the foresail. The next hour they launch off a wave and crack the center frame up at the bow. And this is one of the best prepared campaigns of the bunch.
One telling video interview had Jonathon McKee working the grinder and saying that after three days of putting the pedal down going to Capetown he was looking for a respite. At Capetown he was cycled off the boat for the next leg. His 50 year old body needed some R&R. I have the utmost respect for Jonathon's sailing abilities but these boats chew up sailors and spit them out.
I really wonder how many of these teams will be able to complete that monster leg between Quindao, China and Rio De Janeiro Brazil?
John Keegan, the military historian, wrote a book "The Face of War" where he speculated on how a full military confrontation between the East and West on the border of Germany would play out (obviously written before the downfall of the Eastern Bloc). His conclusion; after three days of all out tank battles, ground battles; for those on the front line, the human body would shut down.
I really wonder if, with these latest Volvo 70's, they have upped the game so much, that we will have human zombies trying to finish this thing out.
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