Volvo Ocean Race – Team SCA has slender lead

by Volvo Ocean Race on 22 Apr 2015 Volvo Ocean Race – A very slight increase of wind across the fleet and just a few degrees of the right-hand shift have shuffled the pack a little from the last scheduled position report.

Those are the facts but in reality nothing has changed. There is still only 5.3nm from front to back. That’s an increase of 0.1 nm

There is still only a one-knot increase of wind reported from the highest gust of 19 knots. Team Brunel has been the fastest boat in the fleet clocking 14.9knot three-hour average speed over the ground.

The slowest was Team SCA at 14.4 knots but that subtle shift favoured the magenta boat. So the fleet keeps rolling north like six bowling balls, deep into the Atlantic Ocean and steadily on.

Patience and boat speed continue to be the winning advice. One team that may need to find a little more patience than most is Dongfeng Race Team. They have undergone a repair to their broken water-maker by wrapping the split tube with carbon in an attempt to seal the crack.

The glue used is curing now so it will still be a few hours before the crew dares to test the fix. This will be a tense moment as they probably only have one attempt at this. If it works then happy days, if not they have two very unsatisfactory options.

Option one is to make a pit stop in a port of their choice and pick up a new part. If they do this, the rules say they must stop for a minimum of 12 hours. Recent leg finish history would say they they would probably not catch up so potentially they would be signing up to a sixth place.

Option two is for those thirsty crews to carry on using their emergency water-maker, and manually and painfully pump their way out of trouble. Extreme races sometimes need extreme choices. Let’s hope that the repair works!

Dongfeng’s troubles have highlighted how much we take the simple function of a water-maker for granted. All the crew are on their own micro-planet with its own rules of survival. This has rocked their world and exposed how such a small shift in the norm could change the course of their destiny.

Today is World Earth Day, where we should all take the opportunity to appreciate those things that the earth provides for us. Like planet Dongfeng’s water-maker issues, you don’t realise how important something is until it stops working…….

Think about it!

Today's weather

1) Strong cold front sweeps across the fleet during the next few hours
- cold front will be near 20s along the Brazilian coast to near 30s/31w at 1200utc Wed
- lots of squally showers and thunderstorms with this strong cold front
2) Trailing high pressure has a pressure of 1024mb and is just E of Punta del Este Uruguay at 1200utc Wed
- this high will move slowly E during the next 24 hours
3) Cold front will move fastest northward along the Brazilian coast, reaching 18 30s along the coast by 1200utc Thu
- low pressure forms on the cold front Wed night/Thu morning and will be near 21-22s/34-36w at 1200utc Thu and it will be a 1011mb low near 25s/26-28w 1200utc Fri
4) Showers and squalls will play a very important role in the winds and weather the next 3 days
- there will be a mixture of strong wind speeds. Variable wind directions and some very important wind holes developing behind any of the squalls, especially Thu and Fri
5) Cold front stalls near 15s Thu night and Fri and starts to dissipate
- NE trade winds will fill in from ENE to the W during Fri, north of the cold front

Position report at: 22 Apr 03:40 UTC / Updated 3 hourly		DTL (NM)	GAIN/LOSS (NM)	DTF (NM)	Speed (kt)
	Team SCA	0	1	4531.2	14
	MAPFRE	0.1	0	4531.3	15
	Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing	0.4	0	4531.5	15
	Dongfeng Race Team	0.6	0	4531.8	15
	Team Alvimedica	1.9	0	4533	15
	Team Brunel	5.3	0	4536.4	15
	Team Vestas Wind	DID NOT START