Volvo Ocean Race - Groupama 4 claw back the miles

by Franck Cammas on 27 Feb 2012 Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 team Groupama are 48.4 miles astern of the leader, Camper, on the seventh day of the second stage of leg four at the 1600 UTC report.

The fleet is continuing to sail between the easterly monsoon and a disturbed air flow offshore of Japan. Seemingly the navigators are opting to make headway East as they await a little window of opportunity early in the week to dive down to the South-East. Groupama 4 has opted to position herself in front of the Americans, over 100 miles to the North of the leading New Zealand boat.

To make the finish in Auckland, it's proving necessary to make for Japan! Indeed, by opting to avoid the zones of calm which were reigning offshore of the Philippines, the minute they were through the Luzon Strait, there was no other way through than to traverse the Japanese archipelagos of Iwo-Jima, Kazan and Oganawara, which form a long string of tropical islands extending out to the Mariana islands. In fact there's a long band of light winds beneath the Tropic of Cancer (23°N), sandwiched between the disturbed northerly to westerly system, which is sweeping across 30°N, and the monsoon, which isn't really getting up to cruising speed until around 17°N. This is the reason for this atypical course towards the East, which the crews are continuing to adopt and are doubtless rather familiar with after four days together…

However, the moment to switch course isn't yet upon the fleet: the crews will have to wait until at least Monday before they can begin to curve their trajectories around towards the South-East. The hook round should be fairly gradual so as to avoid falling into the tropical zone of calms, which isn't set to disintegrate fully until Tuesday morning. The wind reports this Sunday confirm this: whilst Groupama 4 and Puma are sailing in a north-easterly air flow of between 12 and 15 knots, Camper is making headway in around 10 knots of westerly wind and, the furthest South, Telefonica has hit a twelve knot SSE'ly wind!

That just goes to show that ultimately the 'Great Plains' in the conquest of the East represent a terrain riddled with swamps, where the focus is on avoiding getting bogged down. The caravan is riding out at a gentle trot and has really become dispersed during this perilous pioneering adventure. Indeed there is no less than 150 miles' separation in terms of latitude between the Americans in the North and the Spanish in the South… With her northerly trajectory, Groupama 4 is clawing back the miles. In fact, in just half a day, Franck Cammas and his men have snatched back a good thirty miles on the New Zealanders, who weren't keen to have them breathing down their necks to the left. In addition, the Americans have managed to make up over 180 miles of their deficit in the last 36 hours after their atypical northerly route!

The problem is that at this pace, the ETA of the finish in Auckland is slipping further and further back. Off Taiwan, the leader was 4,700 miles from New Zealand and this Sunday afternoon, it still had 4,260 miles left to cover… 440 miles after four days at sea equates to a VMG of 4.6 miles per hour! Fortunately the easterly monsoon will ramp things up to over twenty knots for at least three days from Tuesday, and the resulting atmosphere of over 400-mile days will enable the fleet to lengthen their stride.

The benefit of this easterly course is that the fleet will have a more favourable angle for targeting Vanuatu by going around the equatorial Doldrums, which are holding sway offshore of New Britain and the Solomon islands. In the meantime it's very hard to make out who will be the first to come out the other side of the Mariana archipelago: Groupama 4 seems to be in a good position to limit Puma's comeback via the North whilst controlling Camper further to the South. We await the answer from noon on Monday, once the NNE'ly air flow, linked to a depression rolling down from Japan, causes the monsoon further South to re-establish.

Positions at 1300 UTC on 26/02/2012
1. Camper 4,244 miles from the finish
2. Telefonica – 13.9 miles astern of the leader
3. Groupama 4 – 48.4 miles astern of the leader
4. Team Sanya - 82.5 miles astern of the leader
5. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing – 86.2 miles astern of the leader
6. Puma - 96 miles astern of the leader

Groupama Sailing Team website