CAMPER’s tortuous journey through the Malacca Straits is now well and truly behind them and at the 1300hUTC poll they were just 700 miles from Sanya, the finishing point for this third leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. Speaking earlier today, skipper Chris Nicholson declared himself happy with the way the Spanish/New Zealand team was sailing in relation to the wind.

“There is a game of chess being played out here. I like the way we are going in regard to the wind. I think it’s reliable but I am concerned what is there [off the Vietnam coast] in terms of fishing nets. It’s heinous up there!”.

“But we are heading into it in a pretty good position. The lead boats will know that we will push hard in rough conditions and we are pretty well trained in this sort of stuff. But we will keep it sensible.”

Local met reports had cited 40-50k winds and gale warnings but CAMPER’s grib charts were showing 20-25knots. “The coastline is a natural bottleneck for the breeze, but the breeze is not the problem, it is the seastate.” CAMPER is well placed in these conditions having spent most of their early training phase in New Zealand sailing upwind, and the crew is confident both in the boat and in their experience of managing the boat in big seas and rough weather.

However, the weather is not the only issue preying on their minds. The area of the Vietnam coast is not well charted so, with a high density of fishing vessel and nets to contend with, CAMPER will have to exercise extreme caution and with some nets some 10-15 miles long, going around them is not an option. Earlier today Mike Pammenter was winched over the side of CAMPER to remove a piece of rope from the dagger board casing.

“There are a lot of nets in this part of the world. Some of the nets have buoys attached to them every 15-20 meters and then a steel cable about four metres deep. As we draw less, we will try and cant the keel, draw up the daggerboard and try and skid through. There is no way we are going round if we can slide through over the top. We will have to check at the time and see what we can do,” concluded Nicholson.

Earlier in the day Volvo Ocean Race confirmed that there had been issues with the telemetry system on the official race tracker that at one stage showed CAMPER with a 140nm deficit. "Reports issued by the Volvo Ocean Race control room overnight gave inaccurate figures for CAMPER's distance to finish and distance to leader because of a problem with the activation of the Selia Island waypoint. The waypoint calculation has now been corrected and the latest reports give CAMPER's status accurately.“

1300 UTC report 31/01/12
Telefonica Distance to finish - 665.7 miles
Groupama + 7 miles
CAMPER +39.10 nm
Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing +76 miles
Puma + 118.40 miles
Team Sanya +256.80 miles

Update from MCM Hamish Hooper
As we were sitting on the stack sailing along last night a couple of the guys thanked me for making a good dinner. As it turned out they both were surprised to hear it was something completely different to what I had cooked, Adam through it was Honey Soy Chicken, Animal thought it was Beef Teriyaki- I had cooked a Lamb Stir fry. I guess this shows how good a cook I am.

While on the topic of food, there has been a bit of unrest emerging again amongst the guys with the unspeakable happening- people have been missing out of their daily ration of biltong. This can only mean one thing- someone is stockpiling. I have my suspicions but am not one to point fingers without having some concrete evidence so I can come down on them with an iron fist. I am subtly investigating, but the fact there is so much unrest about it from everyone I think the culprit has ceased criminal activity- at least for now. I am considering installing 24-hour video surveillance around the food bags.

Life onboard is a mixed bag, it’s becoming more comfortable with the temperature dropping, but on the flip side is now becoming less comfortable with the increasing sea swell. Cooking and cleaning in the galley is once again becoming like riding a bucking bronco standing up.
I have a sense that the last 4 days of this legs are going to be rather full on.

There is big discussion in the nav station about our final route we take. Until a couple of hours ago it looked like most of the fleet were going to take the coastal route, sailing north to close to the Meecong River mouth before tucking into the Vietnam coast and short tacking up there to minimize the effect of the current. Since then it seems Puma has tacked away and opted for a more easterly route, also Telefonica has tacked away, either to come across to our line or also take the easterly route away from the coast.

These seemingly late changes in tack may have something to do with the weather, which is looking pretty rough, windy and unpleasant with one local Chinese weather model forecasting up to 48 knots. One line of thinking is it could be too heinous for the fishermen to be out, so less fishing nets to avoid, I don’t really see much comfort in this thought other than it possibly presents a small sniff of opportunity for us on CAMPER.

Here’s a fact for you:
The Meecong River is 2800 miles long and begins in the mountains of Tibet and flows through China, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before emptying into the South China Sea.
That’s a big river.