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Delta Lloyd China bound and tearing up the fleet

WITH the battle for the top positions amongst the fleet constantly swapping and changing, the Irish Dutch entry of Delta Lloyd, run by team magnate and Limerick man Ger O'Rourke, is in the mix for a possible podium finish as the business end of leg four in the Volvo Ocean Race shapes up for a testing finish.

The boats are currently running a course west of the Philippines and looking to tack north to towards Taiwan and the finishing Olympic port of Qingdao in China. What also lies ahead to the north is a weather pattern that is set to rip the fleet apart.

Mountainous seas, chilling winds and freezing temperatures await the seven yachts of the fleet. Green Dragon, the Chinese/Irish entry, skippered by Ian Walker, is already limping having damaged the forestay on the high performance racing yacht.

Better news though for O'Rourke's crew and the one Limerick man still on board in Edwin O'Connor as they passed the way point marker in fourth place on the water and have been building on the pressure put  on the top boats as they clock off the miles.

The next 48 hours will tell quite a lot for the crews and boats as they carefully guide themselves through what is expected to be the worst patch of weather and water that the race has seen to date.

Here's the latest email from the crew.

Limerick man Edwin O'Connor (right), grinds out the sail changes during the Volvo Ocean Race

DELTA LLOYD LEG FOUR DAY 6 QFB: received 23.01.09 1151 GMT
Just five hours after Green Dragon broke her forestay; our forestay cover was damaged during a headsail peel. The crew was able to cut loose part of the cover and we had to drop the foresail to do that. This cost us valuable time in this part of the leg.
Around noon we passed the auxiliary waypoint ‘South Rock’, around 185 miles west of Manila (Philippines) and now we are heading for the Philippine coast to do another tack. Winds have picked up some strength and we’re now in some 20 knots NNE’ly breeze for the next day or so.
At the mark, we had worked our position up to the fourth place. Not too bad for the moment. From there on, the waves started growing. We are aiming for the lower waves near the shore. Being aware of what is to come, we do not want to waste too much energy here.
Early in the evening, we were already banging against two to three metre waves and had to ease the pressure a bit by changing to the J4 and one reef in the main. As a relative rooky, I have deep respect for the guys on deck who fix this.
Good night from a bouncing DLYD.
Frits Koek - navigator