Volvo Ocean Race - Leg 7- Its all up in the air

by Sail-World.com on 18 May 2015 Volvo Ocean Race Leg 7 Newport to Lisbon - Two hours after leaving Newport in a solid 15-knot breeze from the southwest, it was a restart for the fleet approaching the eastern corridor of the Rhode Island Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS).

The fleet hit “a light spot with a very shifty wind,” explained Kevin Escoffier onboard Dongfeng Race Team.

Together with MAPFRE and Team SCA, Dongfeng rounded the TSS one nautical mile south of the other three boats and ended up gaining.

Around 2200 UTC, right after passing the TSS, the wind started to gradually shift to the northeast.

With Team SCA in the lead, the fleet approached the southwestern tip of Martha’s Vineyard Island and tacked along the channel between Nomans Land Islandm now MAPRE is back in front but in these conditions anything could happen.

According to Volvo Ocean Race race meteorologist Gonzalo Infante, the strategy ahead relies on a small low-pressure system developing in the Gulf of Maine which is due to get a bit deeper and move southeast.

Depending on the movement and evolution of this low, the strategies after leaving the Shoals to port could be to stay in the west part of the low most of the time with a long port tack upwind until arriving south of Grand Banks, or alternately.
to tack after the Boston TSS into the Gulf of Maine to head to Nova Scotia and catch a cold front by the middle of next week, before sailing just south of the ice limit in Grand Banks.

As Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing skipper Ian Walker said on an update earlier, “The fleet is still closely packed and with a lot of light winds in the forecast I suspect there will be lots of ups and downs to come.”

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