Well, here is something you don't see every day: a 70-ft ocean racer with storm jib and tripple reef.

Did you read "When the Going gets Tough" a few days ago? Well, it turns out that druing the attrocious storm in the Luzon Straights every single Volvo 70 ended up taking refuge behind the Philippines. A number of boats sustained serious damage actually - three have retired from the leg and even the ones still racing are "limping" with various broken bits - like their booms! or their forestays etc..

One exception: Telefonica Blue. Bouwe Bekking is my new hero. When every other boat was running for cover, these guys reefed down, de-canted their keel and plowed on.. amazing.. two nights of the worst conditions ever, 40+ knots against the Kuro Siwo current, whipping up 10 meter breaking waves.

In Bouwe Bekking's own words:

We went from 5 knots to 35 knots of breeze in matter of seconds, right at the top of Taiwan. The sea state was already going crazy, and we thought we were well prepared. As soon the breeze hit us we knew we were in trouble, as the wind direction came 40 degrees different than expected, meaning we had to sail right into the waves. It was a bad night, way worse than a bad one in the gulf stream of Florida, you can't believe so heinous the conditions of the waves were. I called for dropping the mainsail, and seconds after we did that a gust of 45 knots hit us. I was really scared so bad the crashes we made of the waves, and that the boat would not hold out and that SO CLOSE TO THE FINISH. The guys who were driving got washed off the wheels regularly by breaking waves. This was madhouse and one particular bad wave washed the entire radio communication dome off the back. A good score this leg, lost an epirb,, a man over board module,, the dome and a horse shoe (life ring).

What's interesting is that in the mean time the rest of the skippers, anchored in various Philippine bays were having a radio conversation, trying to work out a gentlemen's agreement to cancel the leg and divy-up the points.. Bouwe was furious and sent an email to the VOR site and another to Sailing Anarchy, calling the discussion "ridiculous" and warning that cancelling the leg would render all of the race's slogans ("Life at the Extreme") irrelevant. Thankfully, the race organisers did not give in.

Ironically, the boats that "lost" the day in the Philippines sailed out into a big shift the next day and they've been reaching all the way, while Telefonica Blue, 100 miles ahead still beats into the breeze. Two days later, PUMA and Ericson 4 have sailed to within 30 miles of Bouwe and his boys.. So all that effort really only generated a 2-hour lead!!!

All images from bouwebekking.com