Volvo Ocean Race- Leaders play swapsie along Moroccan coast
by Richard Gladwell Sail-World.com/nz on 15 Oct 2014
October 14, 2014. Leg 1 onboard Team Brunel: Pablo Arrarte stares at the sunset. Stefan Coppers/Team Brunel
The Volvo Ocean Race fleet continues to work its way south, searching for the for the steady winds that will give the boats a faster ride to the Doldrums.
The boats are sailing downwind, with speeds varying according to wind pressure.
There is a lot of position swapping happening as boats converges and then separate. Volvo Ocean Race reports that the spread on the fleet is the biggest to date.
At the latest official report Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing was reported to be leading, and appeared that way on the race tracker. However when the co-ordinates were punched into the Predictwind routing feature, it was Team Brunel who was expected to lead by an hour, using one set of weather feeds, and the two would have been within three minutes of each other using another set of weather data.
The course projections were all very close in terms of distance sailed - with a variance of just 20nm over a distance of 2700nm left to sail to the turning mark at Fernando, and island off the Brazilian coast.
On the graphics produced by Predictwind the recommended courses are all very close, with a similar takeoff point from the Moroccan coast, and a similar turning point to hook onto favourable winds.
The current routing recommends passing east of the Canary Islands in fact being quite close to the African continent, before making a move away from Africa between 1100hrs and 1500hrs UTC on Saturday, and then sailing through the Cape Verde Islands.
They are recommended to turn south between 0600hrs and 0800hrs GMT on Monday.
Although Predictwind's feeds provide 14 days of weather data, it is expected that these times will change.
The latest position information and report from the Volvo Ocean Race at 0500 UTC reads:
Leader: Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
Spread of fleet: 15 miles
Wind speed: 6 knots
Boat speed: 8-10 knots
Team Vestas Wind gambled – and lost big time – during a night of movement and a lead change in the fleet.
The boats had all been sailing very close to the African coast to pick up the prevalent breeze there and at one stage Team SCA went as close at 0.5 miles from the shores of Morocco.
Then the Danish boat decided to make a bold move, sailing west in the opposite direction to the fleet. It was the wrong decision but it took Team Vestas Wind longer than the rest of the fleet to realise it.
At 0500 UTC, Team Vestas Wind were in last position, some 15 nautical miles from the leader and nine miles from the their closest rivals, Team Brunel, in sixth position.
Meanwhile, up ahead, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing regained the lead ahead of Team Alvimedica with Dongfeng Race Team hot on their heels at 0500 UTC.
The 15 nautical miles separating first and last was the biggest gap since the start of the race.
The forecast does not seem to be improving in terms of wind speed to push the boats on their way with light breeze expected for the next few hours.
Sailing away from the coast is not an option where the wind has dropped away altogether. If the conditions continue, the boats will not pass through the Canary Islands until tomorrow afternoon local time.
Now the big question is which side of the Canaries will they take: west or east. If the forecast stays like this, they will probably go east, the channel between the islands and the African coast
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