Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 10 on board Brunel. Bouwe Bekking driving in a big sea state. 27 March, 2018.

On paper, the second Southern Ocean leg of the Volvo Ocean Race is 7,600 miles, the longest of the race by a lot. These are the difficult miles that push men, women and equipment to their breaking point. This classic and defining segment of the race can be fast and kind, but more often than not, it’s fast and brutal, the sort of leg that finds even the most hardened veterans and masochists clamoring for the exit door at Cape Horn. Such will be remembered of the 2018 edition, the one that claimed one life and stripped years off many others.

“The Southern Ocean has been ­especially tough this year,” wrote Simon Fisher, navigator and helmsman for Vestas 11th Hour Racing, hours before they passed the iconic landmark in the wake of Team Brunel on March 29, 10 days after leaving Auckland, New Zealand. “It has been more relentless and unforgiving than I can ever remember.”

Weighing on Fisher’s mind and casting a somber pall across the fleet was the unsettling death of Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag’s 48-year-old ­crewmember John Fisher, knocked overboard during an accidental jibe and declared lost at sea after an impossible search.

“In the past week, it feels as if we have been battered by storm after storm. And yet another squall is never far away,” said Simon Fisher. “As the clouds that bring the squalls roll by, we are hit by 35- to 40-knot gusts, not to mention a mixture of hail and snow. The novelty of making snowballs has long since worn off. This is sailing at its most extreme.”

The bitter cold, relentless speed from running with consecutive storms and lack of sleep following countless jibes against the race-imposed ice-exclusion zone had worn down everyone, added Fisher. Videos and photos transmitted from every boat, including Vestas, revealed the sunken eyes, blistered and frostbiting hands, wind-burned cheeks and the lethargic and calculated movements of the sailors.

“As we brace ourselves for the final few days of strong winds, Cape Horn cannot come soon enough,” closed Fisher. “We have endured many days of heavy weather, storms, squalls, snow, hail and freezing temperatures. Massive waves and howling winds, and all this in a fleet so close and so competitive that we are given no choice but to push to the limit 100 percent of the time. Rounding Cape Horn this time will be more satisfying than ever.”

As monumental as the rounding is for those who’ve done it, including Team Brunel’s Bouwe Bekking — his ninth — there was barely a moment for slaps on the back, a cigar and a nip of rum, for there were still 2,000 miles to go before the finish in Itajai, Brazil.

“The crew is very, very, very tired,” wrote Bekking. “Even though we are leading, there is no ‘hurray’ feeling on board. The loss of John is sitting way deeper than people like to admit. I think of him several times in an hour. It didn’t come easy this leg. As everybody knows, it was a windy one.”

Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 9 on board Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag. John Fisher winding the winch during a sail change. 26 March, 2018.

Only partway through the leg did the teams get a 24-hour respite from the hard racing and close battle being waged in the position reports. Crews seized the opportunity to mend and prepare their bodies and boats for one last punishing low that would propel them toward Cape Horn. Once the wind got cranking again, they were right back into it.

“We had some 40 to 45 knots, which is no fun. Actually, it is pure survival mode,” wrote Bekking on March 25, four days out from the Horn. “But still doing between 22 and top speeds of 39 knots, crazy. But you know the others don’t hold back either. Backing down now? No way. Anybody will do this. It is the way we sail.”

A day earlier, navigator Libby Greenhalgh confessed to “some ­trying times” on board Scallywag as they jibed against the ice gate. The Hong Kong/Australian entry was seemingly falling farther behind the fleet with every maneuver. Crash jibes weren’t helping their cause. “The motivation to push ourselves has to come from within the team, especially when you are short jibing and cannot immediately display the benefit from the boats around,” wrote Greenhalgh. “There is no one there, just us, and that middle of the ocean suddenly seems very far and very alone.”

Two days later, with the Southern Ocean in full noise, her words rang true. Fifteen minutes before sunrise, in 35 to 45 knots of wind and 15-foot boiling seas, the 65-footer reportedly surfed down a wave and then spun into an accidental jibe.

According to a team statement, John Fisher was transiting the cockpit, moving forward to tend to a headsail sheet when “the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat.” Because of his movement at the time, he was not tethered.

Leg 7 from Auckland to Itajai, day 12 on board MAPFRE, Antonio Cuervas-Mons warming up the glue, 30 March, 2018.

A Jonbuoy and horseshoe were deployed, but by the time the team had stowed headsails and motorsailed back to the MOB location, they were unable to find buoys nor Fisher. With a powerful storm barreling down on them and the British sailor’s chances of survival diminished, the searching ended and the mourning began.

As Scallywag rerouted to Chile, its competitors soldiered on toward Cape Horn with yet another low-pressure punch, with more crash jibes and broken bits and bones to write home about.

It was then Mapfre‘s turn, when the overall race leader revealed it’d been dealing with a compromised mainsail track, which was giving the team dire concerns. They’d effected a jury rig, and knowing the next failure was a dismasting, they dispatched a small shore team to the remote South American tip. Skipper Xabi Fernandez hadn’t anticipated their mainsail parting from luff to leech while en route, so Mapfre‘s anticipated pit stop before rounding the Horn proved to be a wise choice after all. Thirteen hours after suspending racing, with a bandaged mainsail, a reglued track and a critical repair to the boom performed, they were back on the racetrack, in slow pursuit of the front-runners. They too were happy to leave the Southern Ocean, with all its splendor and misery.

Proving, however, that one is never done until the docklines are secured, word came on March 30 that Vestas 11th Hour Racing, second around the Horn, dismasted approximately 100 miles southeast of the Falkland Islands. The crew was forced to cut away the broken mast to avoid damage to the hull and motored under its own power toward the islands. At press time, the team was motoring to Itajai, this time putting a few thousand hard miles on its Volvo Penta saildrive.

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The Spanish team Mapfre crossed the finish line for Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race in Itajaí, Brazil on Sunday morning, securing a fifth-place finish and collecting six points. The result hands the overall lead in the race to Dongfeng Race Team, who leapfrog over Mapfre with a one-point advantage on the leaderboard.

It’s a disappointing turn of events for skipper Xabi Fernández and his team who had led the race since winning Leg 2. “It’s been difficult for all of us,” Fernández said. “We were expecting much better, but it’s not the end of the world, it’s not so bad. We were compromised this leg with technical problems, but it’s nothing to do with the crew work or the trust we have in each other. We’ve been going very well up to this moment and I’m pretty sure we’ll keep going well in the future.”

While Mapfre was able to hang on to the leaders through the gales and hard miles of the Southern Ocean despite a damaged mast track, a torn mainsail at Cape Horn subsequently forced a 13-hour stop for repairs.

That allowed the leading group to push ahead of a high-pressure ridge, which would eventually all but block Mapfre’s progress north towards the finish and turn that 13-hour pit-stop into nearly a five-day deficit at the finish line. Mapfre crossed the finish line at 07:59 UTC, for an elapsed time for the leg of 21 days, 06:59:09.

Five boats finished Leg 7, with Team Brunel taking the win and scoring maximum points, followed by Dongfeng Race Team and team AkzoNobel. On Saturday, Turn the Tide on Plastic finished fourth.

Two teams retired from the leg: Team SHK/Scallywag following the loss of John Fisher overboard; and Vestas 11th Hour Racing following a dismasting south of the Falkland Islands. Both teams are now delivering their boats to Itajaí, Brazil, with a view to being on the start line for Leg 8 on Sunday, 22 April.

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It’s early on December 13, 2017. We’re somewhere in the Southern Ocean, between Cape Town and the big frozen continent at the bottom of Earth, three days into the third leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. It’s been a full-tilt southerly blitz to the “Ice Gate,” a virtual boundary established by race organizers, a no-go zone to keep the fleet away from bergs and growlers. The boundary lies ahead, but to our west is a low-pressure system that will pack a punch. The smell of breakfast permeates the moist interior as the sailors who have just come off watch warm up and refuel with hot porridge. The conversation between skipper Xabi Fernández and navigator Juan Vila seems to carry more weight than usual. They weigh the pros and cons of their battle plan. There’s much to consider about the drag race to zone: how hard to push, the ramifications if something breaks, the strength of the storm, and how to get the most wind and stamina out of the crew. The safe, conservative approach is to hedge north, like some of the other teams are doing. The alternative is to press on toward the zone. The danger is, should something break and they need to run downwind, there’s no margin for error. Cross into the zone and get pegged with a penalty. But the rewards for those who dare to go deeper are tremendous. There’s more wind and more speed. Once there, however, the routing software plots a manic line of zigzags along the boundary.

Later, up on deck, Fernández is at the helm and Sophie Ciszek is trimming when watch captain Pablo Arrarte climbs out of the companion and into the cockpit to break the news of what’s in store for the next few days. They’re about to do about 50 jibes. “Oh my God! 50?” Ciszek exclaims. “Don’t take your gear off for six days.”

The mood intensifies as news of the plan spreads across the boat. There’s anticipation and an elevated priority of preparation. It will be hard living over the next few days, and soon, the gear stack is in order, the boat is bailed as best it can be, and the sailors are rested, eyes focused and filled with anticipation for what lies ahead.

Vila’s words ring out from his dark nav station tucked underneath the companionway.

“Jibing in five!”

Part of the crew goes on deck, and the remainder stays below to move the gear stack. Initially, everything is orderly, nice and tidy, but after a dozen or so maneuvers, fatigue is setting in and nerves rattling, especially for those woken from deep sleep or interrupted from a good meal of freeze-dried lamb stew. That’s when the lightest bags develop wings and reach the other side of the boat without touching the cabin sole. The once-organized stack becomes a muddle of bags, inevitably with the daily food bag buried at the bottom.

This entire tortuous pre-jibing stacking procedure can take up to 30 minutes, depending on sea state and wind conditions. It’s worse at night, when conditions seem to worsen and visibility is difficult. The bags also get heavier with every jibe.

Water magically appears in the bilges seconds after it’s removed. It’s a full-time job to bail water before the jibe, which helps keep the stack — and the boat — as dry as possible. With gallons upon gallons of cold ­seawater washing across the deck, cascading into the cockpit from the hatch cover, it’s a game of luck to time unzipping the cover and dumping the bucket of bailed water out of the hatch. Failing to get the companionway hatch closed in time results in water pouring into the boat, and another hour or more of bailing.

While there’s plenty of activity below, there’s much more happening on deck. Wave after wave crashes over the boat. One knocks Rob Greenhalgh clear off the helm, causing his inflatable PFD deploy. He’s OK, ­recovers quickly, and keeps full steam ahead until the end of his watch. As the jibing continues, we skirt along the ice gate. Air temperatures plummet, and even in the relative warmth of the interior, every breath is visible against survival suits swaying on the rack.

Despite the insane pace and harsh conditions on deck, the interior is eerily quiet against the usual symphony of creaking carbon fiber, rushing water and moaning winches. Everyone below is asleep. Vila sleeps sitting up, his head swaying with the movement of the boat as he steals a power nap before the next jibe. I’m bundled up at the media station, in the last of my warm clothes, when there’s a tap on my shoulder. Louis ­Sinclair is asking me if I have a coffee mug he can use to make coffee for the crew on deck. It seems the rest of the mugs have perished in the sea. Hot chocolate coffees, or even cold chocolate bars, make a huge difference to morale, especially in conditions such as these. This one last-remaining coffee mug will become one of the most safely guarded items on the boat for the next 10 days.

The crew fights hard through every jibe, snagging sleep wherever possible in places normally deemed unfit to sleep but pass as acceptable when exhaustion wins over adrenaline. Too many jibes. Everyone’s lost count, but I can see determination in their eyes. They know what’s at stake, and Dongfeng is in sight.

“Jibing in five,” Vila hails out again. It’s time to move the stack and put the ice gate in our wake.

Editor’s note: Mapfre emerged from its ­Southern Ocean jibing duel with the Dongfeng Race Team with the lead, and eventually the leg win, putting them atop the overall leader board. Edney, of Omaha, Nebraska, was onboard reporter with Mapfre for the leg and sustained a head injury while transferring gear belowdecks, forcing her to sit out Leg 4.

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