Volvo Ocean Race- Leg 1 turns inside out in Doldums
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 22 Oct 2014
October 21, 2014. Leg 1 onboard MAPFRE. Anthony Marchand and Xabi Fernandez during their shift heading into the Doldrums Francisco Vignale/Mapfre/Volvo Ocean Race
As reported earlier Leg 1 of the Volvo Ocean Race would seem to have gone from being a tightly fought contest to being a procession to Cape Town.
Even though only 40% of the course has been sailed, the distance between the boats are significant (other than the two lead boats) and look set to increase.
The big change came as the boats entered the Doldrums and the two westernmost boats Abu Dhabi and Team Brunel sailed through the Convergence Zone without dropping too much boat speed.
Spread across a front of over 100 nm the easternmost boat, Team Vestas Wind looked to have run out of wind and lost 100nm to the leaders in the space of 12 hours or so. However she appears to have found the breeze again, and with a better angle and higher boat speed, she is eating into the lead of the front runners.
Team Vestas Wind has another 24 hours to sail before she is predicted to be back into steady double digit wind speeds. the danish flagged entry may be able to pull back more of her losses.
Behind Team Vestas Wind and in the centre of the course, speeds have improved, but the four boats are still not up to the speed of the leaders. They too lost significant ground in the last 24hours.
The reality of the situation is that the first boats to truly exit the Doldrums will have a significant advantage, and are unlikely to be run down by those who are currently astern.
Although the Predictwind routing function will run weather projections for up to 10 days, the boats are just outside this range for the finish at Cape Town.
On the basis of past races, strong winds are expected all the way to Cape Town, and the boats usually sail, on this sector of the course, at some of the fastest speeds in the 40,000nm race around the world.
The report from the Volvo Ocean Race Control is as follows:
Latest position report: 0500 UTC October 22, 2014
Leader: Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
Spread of fleet: 170 nm
Wind Speed: Different across the fleet 6 knots down to nothing
Wind Direction: Average 60º
So, maybe west was best after all... at least it was for Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Team Brunel, who stuck together (just 45nm apart in fact), as they took the western approach into the Doldrums.
It was a choice made way back even before the Cape Verde Islands, and one that Ian Walker was very confident would give his boat a clear run through a notoriously unpredictable area. The Dutch team currently sit around 10nm behind the Emiratis, and both are going at the same speed - 7 knots, headed at 170°, with a wind direction 60°.
Over on the other side of the fleet, Team Vestas Wind has also broken through the worst of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and interestingly find themselves in almost identical conditions to those 170nm the other side of the pack, although skipper Chris Nicholson would admit that they've had a far more difficult time of it.
The advantage to the bue boat is that they now have a better angle for the approach to the next waypoint, Fernando de Noronha, and that could see them take miles out of the two leaders - when reaching in marginal wind strength, a higher angle to the wind will result in faster boat speed.
It's hard going for the rest of the teams back in the cheap seats though. MAPFRE, Team Alvimedica, Team SCA and to a lesser extent Dongfeng Race Team are currently sailing in just one knot of wind - so unless they get some lucky cloud action, they could take most of the day just to get off Mother Nature's naughty step.
On Alvimedica, Onboard Reporter Amory Ross writes, 'so again we drift in darkness without a ripple on the water - sails aimlessly smacking against'.
It's known as 'the Full English', 0.00 knots of wind (three fried eggs), but it doesn't taste quite so nice when you're presented with a big plate of it.
For the front three, attentions turn to sailing fast down to the Equator crossing. For the rest of the pack, well, they'd just like to sail.
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