Volvo Ocean Race – Treacherous times in the danger zone
by Volvo Ocean Race on 23 Apr 2015
Onboard MAPFRE - Andre Fonseca and Carlos Hernandez on watch and some spray from the reaching conditions - Leg six to Newport – Volvo Ocean Race 2015 Francisco Vignale/Mapfre/Volvo Ocean Race
Volvo Ocean Race – After twelve hours of straight line sailing locked together, Alvimedica made a move to sail from below Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s line to above. This established Alvimedica as the most left in the pack and farthest to the north.
The Dutch team of Brunel is the furthest to the right and south, a position that they temporarily gained from, as the wind shifted right 40º over five to six hours. Brunel made a good gain of 1.4nm together with Dongfeng and MAPFRE. SCA also gained 1.3nm on the leaders, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing.
This shift has marked a less stable period of conditions. Looking at the weather over the region, there is a ridge of clouds stretching a few hundred miles across their path.
Some of the boats are reporting quite a lot of unstable cloud action. It’s treacherous times in the danger zone for all the teams, as, although sailing very close together, they are far enough apart that any one boat could get either a positive or negative wind effect. They will be watching the sky for any clues that it can give.
Alvimedica was once such a boat to suffer a metaphoric speed bump in the ocean and take a sudden loss to the fleet. At one stage they were only in six knots to the fleets' 13, and on a very poor heading of almost 40º down compared to the nearest competitor. This unlucky downturn happened at night so it must have been even harder to spot.
The trend is for the wind to slowly keep tracking right. The fleet will be considering a tack in about 24 hours that will tack them north into the tropics. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing will need to watch the fleet to the right as there are a little exposed on the outside of the wind bend.
If this was an athletics track, ADOR may be in lane eight compared to Brunel’s lane one. Time to put their bow down and go fast and foot into the header maybe?
Leader: ADOR
Wind speed: 12-13 knots
Boat speed SOG (15 mins): 10-12 knots
Wind direction: 2º - 359º
Lowest boat speed: SCA (10.5 knots)
Highest boat speed: TBRU (11 knots)
Lowest wind speed: ADOR, SCA, DFRT (12 knots)
Highest wind speed: MAPF, ALVI, BRUN (13 knots)
Leg six – Itajai – Newport
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