life
ON THE WATER
Photo: Fog engulfs the fleet as it leaves Boston for the trans-Atlantic crossing to Galway.
Winner’s Podium in Sight
for Salter Brothers
Jules and Guy Salter have sailed just a shade over
32,000 nautical miles on Ericsson 4 since the Volvo
Ocean Race started from Alicante last October.
Their boat has a commanding lead, but, with four
legs and two more in-port races left to complete,
winning this epic ocean race is still far from a
forgone conclusion. In fact, the final 4,000 nm
could be some of the hardest for Jules, who is the
navigator and Guy, who is the embedded news
reporter.
Leg seven, from Boston to Galway in Ireland,
was the last of the pure ocean legs and took
the seven-strong fleet back to Europe across the
North Atlantic. At just 2,550 nm, it was one of
the shorter legs, but not one that should ever
be taken for granted. It was, according to the
Salters’ meteorologist Chris Bedford, ‘fraught with
danger’. This might just be of benefit to Guy, who
would like to win the media award for the leg. “It
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tends to go to those who film the boat breaking,
something we have not done much of,” he laughs.
The cold Labrador Current, which flows from the
Arctic Ocean south along the coast of Labrador
and passes Newfoundland, brings icebergs with
it. It meets the warm waters of the Gulf Stream at
the Grand Banks, southeast of Newfoundland, and
the combination of these two currents produces
heavy fog. This was the undoing of Titanic in
1912 when, in the fog, she collided with an
iceberg and foundered. Over 1,500 people were
drowned. The optimum course for the Volvo fleet
passes very close to the spot where the Titanic
went down.
To keep the Volvo fleet safe, race organisers
introduced an ‘ice exclusion zone’, an area which
the boats must keep clear of, but, even with this
precaution, racing across the North Atlantic was
still a dangerous business.
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