Volvo Ocean Race - Last day drag race to Sanya

by Rob Kothe & Jedda Murphy on 26 Jan 2015 Volvo Ocean Race - The northerly drag race continues, with the stable light wind forecast to drop slightly. The boats have all remained in position, if anything cementing their places with gaps between them increasing slightly through the night.

Dongfeng leads with ETA of 2000 UTC today, Abu Dhabi at time of this report was 54.5 nautical miles behind, astern of her was Alvimedica, 13 miles back, then MAPFRE another 7 miles in arrears, then Brunel, just three miles away and tail gunners Team SCA another ninety miles back.

With all the stages of this leg seemingly repeating themselves – drag race to tacking duel to drag race and so on – Team Alvimedica OBR Amory Ross woke up to something at least a little different today.

'Sunrise this morning revealed an empty horizon in all directions. There was no Abu Dhabi, no MAPFRE, no Brunel; our first competitor-less landscape of this leg. That’s an amazing statistic, 22 days into this crazy and chaotic adventure east,' he wrote in his early blog.

The worst of the light winds is due to be with the fleet now (0600-0900 UTC) and it would surprise everyone if Dongfeng could not keep their mast in the boat and sail to a historic win.

The lighter winds will affect the others more than Team SCA, which could well close the overall distance between them and the main pack, but with reports from the boats that they are not experiencing the wind that had been forecast, it is difficult to draw too many conclusions.

Sanya is located on the southern tip of Hainan Island and has a high landmass that should mean the sailors can see the arrival port from quite a way out.

Weather

1) Wind regime will remain light today but may build a few kts Tue/Wed.

2) There is a dissipating front stretching from E of Hainan to Taiwan today.

3) This has killed the NE Monsoon for the time being with winds south of Sanya mostly NE in the 10 kt range.

4) With the light wind gradient there will be a thermal shift to SE at Sanya for the afternoon hours.

a) This then backs into the E-NE overnight hours Monday night

5) Meanwhile there is a very strong 1045 mb high moving into northern China today which will ridge southward midweek.

7) It will tend to increase the wind gradient a few kts on Tuesday and Wednesday but speeds only to low perhaps mid-teens.

8) There still may be a wind shift to SE Tuesday PM approaching Sanya.

9) Satellite pictures show clear to partly cloudy skies across much the region near and S of Sanya.