Southern Ocean Poker

by Lizzie Green on 23 Feb 2006 As the fleet begins its approach to the first ice gate, it is looking more and more likely that the gamble taken by ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) and Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) to stay to the north of the main bulk of the fleet, may well pay off. These two are nearest to the gate, approximately 500 miles to the north of them. Around the gate, the winds are light, but once they have passed above it, they may have the opportunity to reach off at greater speeds.

Although the rest of the fleet, positioned 100 nautical miles to the south has better breeze, they may have to sail to windward to reach the gate and this will slow them considerably. ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) is back in the lead, but for how long? The worse case scenario is struggling to get to the gate and, in the end, having to beat in an increasing northerly breeze.

‘So who is right and who is wrong?’ asks Knut Frostad from Brasil 1. ‘It’s just like playing poker. What cards to you guys hold? Or no cards at all and just showing up a brave face, trying to make everyone believe something? ‘

‘It’s a bit hairy right now to hear the six hour scheds (position reports) and everyone onboard movistar is holding his breath when the positions come in,’ wrote skipper of movistar, Bouwe Bekking, this morning. ‘We are trying to sail around the high and means we are nearly 50 degrees off course. It makes a huge difference if another boat sails a closer course to the waypoint,’ he added.

Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) is the furthest north of the group trying to sail around the high pressure. She is 27 miles north of movistar. Movistar is just three miles north of Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) and Cayard is 18 miles north of ABN AMRO ONE, a total north south divide of approximately 50 miles in this pack.

LEG FOUR DAY 4, 22.2.06, 1000 GMT POSITION REPORT

YACHT Latitude Longitude DTF SMG 24 Hour Run 24 Hour Speed DTL DTLC SGPTS PLPTS PTLPTS POP POSITION OVERALL ETA
1 ABN1 54 07.46S 155 02.36W 05698 19.4 476 19.9 00000 +00014 0 7.0 7.0 45.5 1 10/03/06 __:__:__
2 POTC 53 53.16S 155 24.52W 05698 18.5 461 19.2 00000 +00011 0 6.0 6.0 27.5 4 10/03/06 __:__:__
3 BRA1 51 25.84S 157 41.76W 05700 13.7 384 16.0 00002 -00002 0 5.0 5.0 25.0 5 10/03/06 __:__:__
4 MOVI 53 50.73S 155 53.99W 05711 19.0 459 19.1 00013 +00014 0 4.0 4.0 29.0 3 10/03/06 __:__:__
5 ERIC 53 25.99S 156 28.00W 05712 16.8 423 17.6 00014 +00007 0 3.0 3.0 19.5 6 10/03/06 __:__:__
6 ABN2 52 08.69S 157 39.42W 05714 13.9 374 15.6 00016 -00002 0 2.0 2.0 30.0 2 10/03/06 __:__:__

ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 Brasil 1
ERIC Ericsson Racing Team
MOVI movistar
POTC Pirates of the Caribbean

DTF: distance to finish, SMG: Speed made good, DTL: distance to leader,
DTLC: distance to leader change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll

SGPTS: points scored at scoring gates on this leg to date
PLPTS: projected leg points
PTLPTS: projected total leg points including actual points from scoring gates
PTP: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht maintains current position