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New Zealander, Richard Mason, is one of two medics on board Ericsson, the other is Magnus Woxen. As preparatory training, they spent a week with triage doctors, in Stockholm, had two days of basic training and were then thrown in to a hospital Emergency Room for two days, working side by side with the doctors. Richard and Magnus can do most things, except open surgery and the diagnosis and treatment of internal injuries, but - thanks to satellite communications onboard - they can transmit live to the Volvo Race Office, which has a team of specialist volunteers on-call 24 hours a day. In a serious situation, they would send live pix and the specialists would tell them what to do. The boat carries enough fluids and immobilisation equipment to keep a “pretty seriously” injured person alive for about five days, which should be long enough to organise a medivac in most places.” |
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everyone or, if you do, you share around.” said Mason “An interesting thing went on the other day; there was a bit of rattling around in the bunks, a few lolly papers coming out of the bunks every now and again during a tack. When that happens, you just try and guess who the culprit is, find the bag and eat it while they’re on deck.” Provisioning for each leg is discussed at crew meetings and all food is vacuum-packed in dry bags, theoretically to keep it fresh and dry, but it still gets “trashed”, because everything gets shifted back and forth during manoeuvres. Everyone is essentially responsible for everything, but there is a “minister of the interior”, who tries to keep track of where everything is; not an easy thing to do. The only things that never get shifted around are the emergency equipment and tools. |
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Safety training takes all eventualities into consideration and there are “crib sheets” on what to do in case of capsizing, dismasting, fire, abandon ship. All have standard procedures and everyone is responsible for their own area. Grab bags are now taken more seriously; in the past it was a case of “Go through the race requirements, put the necessary equipment in the bag, leave it in the bottom of the boat and you don’t think about it until the end of the race; now we put in our own additions. Standard equipment includes satellite phone, standard set of flares (orange smoke flare for use during day), red flares, white collision flares to be used at night, flashlight. There are two 14-man liferafts and medical and food supplies in grab bags. When movistar had a potential sinking issue, Ericsson was the standby boat to go get them if the boat went down and they were in contact with the Spanish boat the whole time, though their assistance wasn’t needed. As Mason says “Never get out of the boat until it’s absolutely sunk; you want to step off the top of the mast. Certainly, in the Southern Ocean, it’s your last line of defence.” |
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ups for all equipment. “It was quite fun, actually, because natural sailing skill comes out.” said Foxall: “Sometimes going straight at the mark isn’t that bad.They have handheld GPSs and manual backups for all equipment. “It was quite fun, actually, because natural sailing skill comes out.” said Foxall: “Sometimes going straight at the mark isn’t that bad.” Driver and helmsman are constantly using instrumentation to achieve performance, which is measured by 1 or 2 %, not by talking about knots or half knots, it’s hundreds or tenths of a knot and, when talking about sail crossovers and sail changes, sometimes two or three sails could be up for a given condition. So, navigators and skipper are constantly looking at those numbers and running it through databases to decide what will give the best averages and you might go from 105% potential performance to 107% with a sail change. If you don’t have the instrumentation there’s no way you can do that by feel. “Also,” added Foxall “it’s hard to know what speed you are going.” So what does a Volvo Ocean Race crew experience that others don’t? Mason (an environmental scientist) said “The biggest feeling I get from it is that the world is a very small place. You see all these different cultures of people over eight months, it’s an incredibly small place. What is scary is the amount of rubbish you see in the ocean these days and that there is less and less sea life around. Water is life and we need to look out for it.” Foxall said “When you live and work for a large part of your year outside of civilization, you see the contrasts so quickly over a nine-month period. Offshore for three weeks you see nothing except waves and wildlife and then you come ashore and get a couple days off in the mountains or at the beach and it changes so quickly, it’s quite a stark contrast you see. You notice it a lot more. Any advice for up-and-coming sailors? “Other than you need to know how to sail.” Richard Mason said, laughing “Take up golf.” Foxall added “Seriously, sailing is a fantastic sport. We’re very lucky to be in a sport that has so many aspects to it. The extreme of offshore monohull sailing is just one of them, there’s multihull sailing, regatta racing in the bay, there’s dinghy and Olympic sailing. We are both lucky to have been involved in a lot different disciplines within the sport. We get to meet amazing people. It’s a great business to be in, it’s a great life and I highly recommend it!” |
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Lori Pierelli |
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Photos: Top Lori Pierelli; others Team Ericsson |
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