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Sail-World.com : Volvo Ocean Race - Groupama face the difficult conditions
Volvo Ocean Race - Groupama face the difficult conditions
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As the Volvo Ocean Race fleet gradually enters deeper into the Straits of Malacca, the breeze is dying away and becoming more random, with the tidal current playing a bigger and bigger role. The next 350 miles promise to be extremely difficult to negotiate, as several windless zones are scattered about this bottleneck...
Since noon on Friday, when the six VOR-70s entered the Straits of Malacca, a twelve to eight knot ENE'ly breeze has continued to blow (veering gently to the North), but this is unlikely to carry on once the Spanish leaders approach the capital of Malaysia. Offshore of Kuala Lumpur, the gully narrows to less than fifty miles and mountains reaching over 2,000 metres serve to block the monsoon.
From tonight (European time), the wind is set to drop away to less than five knots and it's very likely that conditions will alternate between squalls, torrential rain and extended periods of calm. As such the upcoming phase is likely to be the trickiest to contend with and in this game of lottery nobody knows who's going to draw the lucky number!
'It's an area where there isn't a lot of wind: it's very hot and very humid since we're close to the equator (2° North) and there are some tidal currents which can reach five knots, in addition to the general current generated by the monsoon and hence running against us. It'll be a tedious navigation with a great deal of shipping, pirates and lots of rubbish in the water (wood, crates, plastic, nets...). This second third of the course to China will require us to come out of this unscathed, which also means within contact of the fleet,' indicated the navigator on Groupama 4, Jean-Luc Nélias.
Within the space of a few dozen miles, the sailing conditions are very different, as can be shown by the trajectory of the boat bringing up the rear: having dropped back around fifty miles, Sanya had a lot of difficulty rounding the headland of Sumatra and since then, her speed has been fluctuating at the mercy of the gusts, from less than three knots to twelve knots.
And as regards strategy, its hard to get a precise idea of when to tack: within the space of few hours or even a few dozen minutes, the wind fills or eases and it was just a simple puff of air that enabled the Spanish to shake off Camper and Groupama 4, and then at daybreak, Puma... Franck Cammas and his men have managed to get back within sight of the New Zealanders, but early this Saturday afternoon they had a deficit of around twenty miles in relation to Telefonica and around ten to the Americans.
'The landscape near the coast is fabulous, reminiscent of Brest's harbour area in the tropics, but we've performed a great deal of manoeuvres since we entered the Straits of Malacca: it's exhausting because you have to restack all the sails each time, which equate to nearly 2.5 tonnes! We've had to contend with headwinds and less strong currents: it's hard-going physically, especially in the heat, as it was necessary to break the sleep pattern, because everyone was needed on deck. The manoeuvres are painful, longer and the fatigue is piling up... the two leaders have got away from us a bit, but we've come back within sight of Camper, which got a bit of an edge over us when we got a few plastic bags caught around the appendages. There are a lot of things floating about in the water!' explained Charles Caudrelier.
The Indonesian night, which began at around noon European time, is making the sailing even more uncertain as it becomes impossible to pinpoint the zones with wind since the moon is barely into her first quarter and the day only lasts a dozen hours. Furthermore, the light, fluky breeze means that headsail changes have to be frequent in order to obtain a speed which has dropped to less than ten knots since the start of the weekend. At this pace, Singapore isn't likely to come into view before Monday!
Positions for Volvo Ocean Race Leg 3 at 1500 UTC on 28/01/2012:
1. Telefonica 1,455.5 miles from the finish
2. Puma - 12.7 miles astern of the leader
3. Camper - 24.0 miles astern of the leader
4. Groupama 4 - 24.9 miles astern of the leader
5. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing - 48.8 miles astern of the leader
6. Team Sanya - 117.8 miles astern of the leader
Cammas Groupama website
Volvo Ocean Race website
by Vincent Borde
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http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=93343
8:23 PM Sat 28 Jan 2012 GMT
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2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race
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