Interesting options ahead for Volvo Ocean Race naviguessers

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 18 Mar 2009
There are some interesting options facing the Volvo Ocean Race navigators, tacticians skippers and fans as the race leaders head up the South American coast.

A patch of strong wind off Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands backed by by and area of light winds has the routing and optimisation software urging the third and fourth placed yachts to take an offshore course to stay with the strong tailwinds and veer well offshore rather than sailing the more direct route to the finish line in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

The chart below show the leading competitors at 0400hrs NZT soon after rounding Cape Horn

The first boat to have to make the decision to head east will be Puma Racing and she will have to do this almost at the Horn. Similarly for Green Dragon, but she will have the benefit of seeing where Puma heads before making an even more radical decision. If they take the easterly option, they will sail east of the Falklands in breezes of 25kts plus from a very good direction.

Ericsson 3 and 4, meantime will stay together passing the other side of the Falklands, in winds of around 15-20kts and a tighter angle.

Both groups then get caught in a patch of light winds - the inshore group in 10kts breezes on a beam reach - the easterly group in winds of 15 kts from aft of the beam.

The other option of course is for Puma to play it safe and be comfortable with the leg points and holding her place overall. In which case we would expect to see her fall into line behind the other two.

that being the case, then the option of heading east would fall to Green Dragon - with little to lose and a lot to gain if she can get a stronger breeze off shore and sail around the three leaders.

We will keep updating 12 hourly, until the options taken become clear.

With the weather data not at its most reliable in remote parts of the planet (due to the relative lack of observation points) these prognoses could change as the weather data is updated, and certainly it is a big call to move east so early in the leg. But on the other hand, that might pay big dividends.

Everyone knows the questions - the answers are a little more difficult.



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How to read these images

The boats have four digit codes as follows: ERT3 - Ericsson 3; ERT4 - Ericsson 4; GDRA - Green Dragon; ILMO - PUMA Racing; TELA - Telefonica Blue;

The wind is shown in barbed arrow format. The longer line is the wind direction, if it has one longer barb at right angles to the tail, then the wind strength is 10 kts, if there is a half size barb, further up the shaft then the strength is 15kts, two full size barbs indicate 20kts and so on.

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The images used in this story have been generated by www.iexpedition.org!Expedition which is a tactical and navigation software application which has been developed by veteran Volvo Ocean Race navigator and Whitbread winner, physicist Nick White, initially for his use in the 2001-2 Volvo Ocean Race with Team News Corp and the Stars & Stripes Americas Cup team.

Since then, www.iexpedition.org!Expedition has been continually refined by a core group of world-renowned navigators and two-time America’s Cup winning navigator Peter Isler has consulted closely in the development of the system. Expedition supports more instrument systems, is easier to use and has the most powerful and useful functions for the racing navigator.

Expedition is now has PredictWind integrated into the application as an option for PredictWind subscribers.

The wind data and prognosis used to produce these images also uses software developed by www.predictwind.com!PredictWind, an application developed by Jon Bilger a top NZ youth and Olympic sailor who turned his hand to wind and weather prediction, and helped Alinghi to their outstanding victories in the last two America's Cups.

Now that same technology is available to the weekend sailing and club racers, the cruising fraternity or professional sailors around the world. Select any region in the world of interest to you and www.predictwind.com!PredictWind will monitor the area for you and provide updated predictions on demand.

PredictWind is a subscription system, with a number of options. While some may feel the wind is free, the ability to get a five day detailed wind forecast for an area of interest creates great peace of mind, allowing forward planning and decision making to be made with some certainty. The time and money saved through being able to work with a high degree of confidence, is more than offset by the relatively small cost of the subscription.

But don't take our word for it, get www.predictwind.com!PredictWind now and have a 30 day trial for free, and see for yourself.