Ericsson 4 grabs Gate points

by Volvo Ocean Race media/Jennifer Lilly on 20 Nov 2008
Ericsson 4, skippered by Torben Grael, was the first boat to the scoring gate at longitudinal 58 degrees east on the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09.

Grael and his men crossed the line at 03:45 GMT to collect their four points. Once across Grael pointed the bow north for the 3,000-mile home stretch to Cochin.

Anders Lewander's Ericsson 3 followed her sister ship and crossed the waypoint at 06:51 to pick up 3.5 points.

Among the pursuing pack, Green Dragon, Team Russia and the Telefonica twins are squabbling over the remaining podium position.

Bouwe Bekking on Telefonica Blue, likes his chances of decent points, noting as he did that the ailing Puma has slowed over the past 12 hours due to structural damage.

'Looks like Puma is having some issues, sailing very slow,' he observed in an email earlier this morning. 'Hopefully their issue are not too big and that they are not forced to stop on their way.

'But it might mean that we can catch them and gain a valuable half point. The same said for our mates on the (Telefonica) black boat. They got the better of us some days back, but now we are catching them again, also that will be a close call for the points.'

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Two new weather systems will drive fleet tactics over the next few days.

According to Race Meteorologist, Jennifer Lilly, as the fleet heads north-east ovet the 24-48 hours 'they will be looking forward to a few days of trade wind sailing'.

A blessed relief from the mauling they have taken in the Roaring Forties.

Over the last 48 hours the Southern Ocean has lived up to its reputation. Nonetheless, Wednesday afternoon saw a slight decrease in the overall wind speeds and a tendency for the winds to veer right, as one large area of low pressure moved off to the east and the next moved in from the west.

Looking ahead, two new weather systems, a high to the northwest and a low to the southwest, are rapidly developing. These two systems will drive the tactics/conditions across the fleet for the next few days.

As mentioned in the last weather forecast, high pressure has been building slowly to the south of Madagascar since Tuesday.

So far this system has had little influence over the conditions across the fleet; however, in the next 48 hours it could play an increasingly significant role, especially as the fleet starts to head north.

Meanwhile, the next area of low pressure is rapidly deepening to the south-west of the fleet, with a cold front extending to the north-west.

Depending on the speed of the low, and the tactics in the fleet, the NW'ly flow ahead of the cold front is likely to build into the mid 20s and last through much of the day today and into Friday.

On Friday there is an increasing chance for gusty winds to 40+ knots and possible squalls, as the next cold front catches up to the fleet.

Behind the cold front the winds will remain gusty, shifting to a SW'ly flow. Meanwhile, the high is expected to become reestablished further to the south, moving east-northeast over the weekend.

The position of the high will make for at least 12 hours of light winds along the rhumb line course between the boats current positions and Cochin.

Thus the tactical choices made in the next 24 hours and the resulting positions of the boats will have a big impact over the weather conditions that each team experiences.

The boats, which start heading north ahead of the cold front will see NW'ly winds and possible squalls.

Alternatively, any teams wait until the front pass will have SW'ly winds to help them head north, but they will risk getting caught in the light winds of the high.

Either way, as the teams head northeast over the next 24-48 hours, they will be looking forward to a few days of trade wind sailing.

Jennifer Lilly