Auckland-Fiji Race- Line honours depends on speed lift by TVS

by Richard Gladwell on 9 Jun 2011
TeamVodafoneSailing will have to lift her speed to the levels forecast by Predictwind's routing feature to be assured of line honours in the Auckland-Musket Cove, Fiji race, which will finish today.

At 2200hrs last night, TeamVodafoneSailing was 100nm behind the Volvo 70 Camper sailed by Emirates Team New Zealand.

By 0700hrs - nine hours later - that lead had been chopped back to just under 60nm. By dead reckoning, at the current rate of lead erosion, it will take TVS another 13hours to catch the Volvo 70, which is now predicted to finish in 13hrs time by one analysis and in 15 hours by another.

However winds are expected to increase on the final stages of the sprint to the finish, and that being the case TeamVodafoneSailing should lift her speed to a 26-29kts average for about six hours. If she can achieve those speeds consistently then she should squeeze ahead by an hour or two, but it will be a close run thing at the end of a 1,140nm race.

Course for both yachts are to sail directly to the finish.

Predictwind.com advise that 'so long as Fiji Vodafone roaming is working (should be) should be getting live pictures, and 1min tracking/data pictures off the boat between 4:30 and 6:30pm by http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/TeamVodafone?fullscreen!clicking_here

At 1100hrs NZT, TVS had slowed to 19.8kts and was 38nm behind, if those speeds hold, by dead reckoning, Camper will win by 90 minutes, finishing at around 7.00pm. To win, TVS needs to sail at an average of 23.5kts or better, assuming that Camper's average speed does not increase above 17kts.

You can click on the link just above to see the current sped aboard TVS in near real-time and pictures should become available before the finish.

We'll have another update early afternoon to check on progress.

Progress can be viewed on the Vodafone Play website http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/TeamVodafone?fullscreen!click_here to go straight to the full screen version. If you are using on an iPhone, please tilt the device horizontally to get the ideal view of both screens. You can wind back the display to follow her progress on the map and accompanying time-lapse pictures as she starts, and then exits the Hauraki Gulf. Now TVS has left 3G coverage only her boat position and actual speed is shown on the display.

Or, you can follow the whole fleet on the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron website www.rnzys.org.nz or http://live.adventuretracking.com/aucklandtofiji2011!click_here to go straight to the Yellowbrick tracker and zoom in to see the individual race yacht's positions updated every 20 minutes.