The last two days have been a nightmare for the navigators in the Volvo Ocean Race as they scratch their heads and spend hours looking at weather models on their onboard computers, trying to find the best way to approach the ice gate ahead.

Steve Hayles, navigator for Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald), has had a pretty harrowing few days. He has some very clear plans in his mind, but because each team has a restricted number of sails onboard it is not always possible to sail the boat to the optimum place on the race course with the sails they have. “We have to try and double guess what other competitors are going to do, what the weather is going to do and what sails we have to get us closest to where Steve wants us to be,” explained skipper Neal McDonald today. “All in all, the last day or so has been very harrowing for him, and I think over the next days it will be hard work, really hard work, for all the boats.”

Andrew Cape, navigator on movistar (Bouwe Bekking) is pragmatic and says he’s not gambling at all. “We are 160 miles away from Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) and one of us is going to be right and one of us is going to be wrong. We are doing the best we can, but it will go one way or another. I am very happy with where we are.”

Onboard ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Joss), the constant companion of Brasil 1 in the north, the nervous times continue as the team has headed into the ridge of high pressure in a bid to cross it early and reach the new breeze on the other side. “While we are battling it out in five knots of breeze, the majority of the fleet is steaming along at 15 knots and the scheds (position reports) make for very dismal reading.”

Dismal reading indeed tonight for these two as the 2200 GMT position report shows a loss of 21 miles for ABN AMRO TWO and worse for Brasil 1 as they post a loss 44 miles in the last six hours. In the south, movistar in third place and Ericsson Racing Team in fourth place both gained four miles on leading boat, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson), while second placed Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) gained two miles.

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