Volvo Ocean Race - Fleet is in yet another transition

by Volvo Ocean Race on 24 May 2015 Volvo Ocean Race - Team Brunel and MAPFRE have just passed 1,000 nautical miles to leg 7 destination, Lisbon.

At 0700 UTC the fleet was is in yet another transition. After separating from the ice limit 24 hours ago, Team SCA has taken 40nm back off the fleet.

Navigator Libby Greenhalgh was set on positioning her team to the north of the pack and they approached the centre of the high pressure 50nm further north than Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, who are the second northernmost boat.

This has rewarded the women's team with average speeds six knots faster than Team Brunel and MAPFRE, current leaders since the last sched, and earned them 40nm over the last nine hours.

The battle between Bouwe Becking’s Team Brunel and Iker Martinez’s MAPFRE continues, meanwhile.
Once again they are right next to each other (0.2 nm), so close you can’t separate their tracks.

As they move east past the eye of the high, the ‘southern pack’ have spread like a cat's paw with the north-south separation doubling from 15 to 30nm.

The wind is set to blow more northerly, moving aft of the beam and building from the 10-12 knots to the low 20s as they sail closer to Lisbon.

The chances of any really big splits in the race are now apparently over.

With the coming shorter legs we might see a gap, but certainly nothing on the scale of the big ocean legs that we saw, for example, with Team Brunel and Team SCA in Leg 4.

Outlook
1) Main weather feature is the large area of high pressure to the NW of the Azores
- The high is around 42n/30 30w
2) The high will edge a bit N to NNE Mon and a little more to the NE on Tuesday
- At 1200utc Mon, it will be located near 44n/ 30 30w
- At 1200utc Tues, it will be near 46 30n/27w
3) It may strengthen a little more over the next couple of days
4) The fleet is still on the back side of the high with SW flow
5) They will continue to move across the north side of the high
- will be in some fairly light air this afternoon and part of tonight
- The breeze may be under 10 kts
- Gradual clocking wind today and tonight
6) They will get on the east side of the high Mon with flow becoming NE
- Winds increase during Mon
- Still looks like the first boat into the increasing NE winds will be strongly advantaged

Today
1) Crossing the high will lead to lighter and clocking wind today
2) SW flow of 10-15 kts will diminish to mainly 6-12 kts and as mentioned clock later today and tonight
- the breeze will become W then NW as we go thru the afternoon and early tonight then into the NE overnight Sun night
- There will be a little more wind to the N than to the S
3) Winds will start to increase once on the east side of the high and into the NE flow

Weather
Partly cloudy
Seas 3-5 feet W to WNW swell


Leader: TBRU
Wind speed: 9.6 knots
Boat speed SOG (15 mins): 11.2 knots
Wind direction: 207º - 224º
Lowest boat speed: DFRT (10 knots)
Highest boat speed: SCA (17.5 knots)
Lowest wind speed: DFRT (9.9 knots)
Highest wind speed: SCA (16.2 knots)