Telefonica shore crews work around the clock to fix the damage sustained when they ran aground at the start of leg 9. Image copyright Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Gabri Olivo
Good progress...
Amazingly enough, from a convulsed mass of lead, now the bulb is back in its original shape, at least as close as it can be... I have no enough words to describe how thankful to the shore team we are, they’re doing an incredible job fixing everything up. We're helping them as much as we can. Tuesday morning at 4am a group of people, Daryl Wislang, Pepe Ribes, Iker Martinez, Xabi Fernandez and Patan (Pablo Arrarte), went down to the boat and sanded the bulb.
Telefonica shore crews work around the clock to fix the damage sustained when they ran aground at the start of leg 9. Image copyright Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race.
What is really good to see is that everyone is doing the best they can, helping here and there to make good progress with the repair. Yesterday, the bulb was straightened up by using a big hammer. Six people alternating hammering the thing down for the first part, but the bulb didn't move much. Then came the big Volvo Digger, but it was a bit of too much power for us. The best solution was to warm the aft end of the bulb up to a superficial temperature of 150 degrees and we ended up using a lifting beam as Archimede lever. The beam, that is normally employed to lift small boats out of the water, was lashed down at one end; the fulcro was on the bulb and at the opposite end, there were seven people acting a force of nearly three tons on the bulb.
Telefonica shore crews work around the clock to fix the damage sustained when they ran aground at the start of leg 9. Image copyright Gabriele Olivo/Telefonica Blue/Volvo Ocean Race.
A few seconds of leverage and job done, the bulb was incredibly straight again. We were all very surprised to see how close to perfection it was. At the present moment, the bulb is being faired and sanded down, hopefully tonight they will spray it and it will be ready soon after that. The daggerboard case has been closed up with a panel, but it needs lots of lamination to beef up the whole area. We're still looking for late tomorrow night maybe Thursday morning to go back in the water and start racing again.
My best compliments to all the guys of Ericsson 4, they sailed a fantastic race, making very little mistakes and they deserve this overall victory. Well done guys.
Also congratulations to Puma, they deserve winning this leg, after we pulled out. It's a shame for us because it would have been really interesting to see a close battle between us two.
But it's not over until it's over.
Volvo Ocean Race
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