Volvo OR - There's no speeding up the slow boats
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 9 Jan 2018 21:43 PST
10 January 2018
Leg 4, Melbourne to Hong Kong, day 09, Tony Mutter and Simon Fisher stare towards the horizon in search of a sign while roasting in the Equitorial sun on board Vestas 11th Hour © Amory Ross / Volvo Ocean Race
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
It has been a long slow and hot 24 hours in the Volvo Ocean Race - as evidenced by the on and off boat video and images.
The fleet is still in the Doldrums, just north of the Solomon Islands and south of Micronesia as they work through the slow miles of Leg 4 from Melbourne to Hong Kong.
According to the weather routing function of Predictwind.com, the agony of the Doldrums may be almost over with maybe another 12 hours of controlled drift before the fleet gets a sniff of the NE trades. They are expected to have the boats up to sitting on double digit speeds inside 48 hours until they are 12 hours away from the finish in Hong Kong - in about eight and a half days time.
According to the 0100hrs UTC position sked, there is just 22nm covering the fleet. That's good news for backmarker SHK Scallywag which has pulled in 10nm in 24 hours. She has averaged 1.4kts faster speed - or in percentage terms is sailing at 25% faster speed than the other six competitors. They are covered by just a distance of 8.2nm according to the distance to finish method used by Volvo Ocean Race to determine positions on their leaderboard.
The telling statistic is the distance sailed in the last 24hrs - just 68-70nm for the leading six boats and 80nm for SHK Scallywag.
Laterally there is an interesting picture evolving as the fleet beginning their exit from the Doldrums.
On the visual position tracker Turn the Tide on Plastic appears to be behind the lead group of four boats - with MAPFRE the most easternmost of the group and Vestas 11th Hour in the centre of the lateral spread. Turn the Tide on Plastics is the most western of the four, and is shown at the top of the leaderboard by Volvo Ocean Race.
That position is supported by Predictwind's routing function. However it is very close, and the final outcome will be determined by who finds what breeze under which cloud.
At the back of the fleet, Team Brunel is positioned to the west of Turn the Tide on Plastics. The current seventh and last, SHK Scallywag is the easternmost of the fleet and according to Predictwind is closer to the others than the leaderboard would indicate.
SHK Scallywag
team AkzoNobel
MAPFRE
Vestas 11th Hour