Volvo Ocean Race: Snakes and ladders at the end of Leg 6
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 25 Feb 2018 00:50 PST
Leg 6 to Auckland, day 18 on board Sun hung Kai / Scallywag. We're in stealth mode for the next 24 hours, watch this space! 25 February, © Jeremie Lecaudey / Volvo Ocean Race
Volvo Ocean Race Leg 6 leader SHK Scallywag has gone into Stealth Mode.
The smart money (and a hint on the video from navigator Libby Greenhalgh) is that she has headed south to cover her rival for first home honours Team AkzoNobel. That would get her closer to the advancing fronts and the fast-closing Team AkzoNobel.
The Leg finish time projections were wildly fluctuating two scheds ago at 0100UTC on Feb 25 with a 24 hours range covering the two feeds used by the Volvo Ocean Racers.
Two scheds later the routing came into line. At the 0700UTC sched the finish times on the two feeds GFS and ECMWF had pulled closer together with the latest projections being with two hours of each other being 13:30 or 15:12 UTC on February 27 - which means 0030 on February 28 of 02:12 - converting those times to New Zealand Daylight Saving Time.
However, across all four weather feeds used by Predictwind, there is still a big disparity with one feed having the Leg winner still just past Cape Reinga, when another has the same boat crossing the finish line in Auckland. All that means is that one feed sees a pathway all the way down the New Zealand coast, while the others see the boats being plagued by light fickle breezes.
The two major issues facing the two leaders are the advance of two fronts in the Tasman Sea, which they are trying to hook into to carry them to North Cape.
The second issue comes at North Cape with an area of light winds, which earlier appeared that these would slow the race leaders. However with the latest weather feeds the light airs appear to be heading east more quickly than the earlier feeds indicated, and the leaders should turn and have a reasonable run down the Northland coast to Auckland mostly during daylight on Tuesday.
(In the images below, the routes generated from GFS and ECMWF are showing in Green (GFS) and Yellow (ECMWF). These two routes are the most direct. The significant features are the strong winds in the two advancing fronts and the light air zone around North Cape at the top of New Zealand.)
This latest (12hrs old) report on the News from the Boats is from Libby Greenhalgh, navigator on SHK Scallywag. Her prediction for the finish is 2000hrs UTC on Feb 27 - which would have the Hong Kong boat in Auckland at 0700hrs local time.
She writes: Brunel popped out of stealth and confirmed what we had thought - they had probably got caught a little more in the lee of the island but ultimately decided to go upwind from there to the finish line.
The fleet is now split 50/50 with over 250nm between them. Which side is going to pay is incredibly difficult to say. I am sure each group is willing it to be their side. But short term the goal is to win your side ready for when the two groups converge; ahead, behind or the same.
That in itself is no easy thing and who would have thought that Dongfeng and MAPFRE would get a good look back in.
We have struggled a little these last couple of scheds with our moding having initially got in the groove but as conditions change so do your sail choices and angles and with each leg this team is learning more and more about these modes, with every mile our understanding is growing and any performance gap with the other teams is closing. For us, the curve is still on a sharp incline upwards.
The slightly higher than average current unpredictability of the weather in front has also contributed to affecting our moding as we end up trying to compromise and hedge our bets, committing to neither one or the other. Which some will say is wise as you keep opportunities others will say a waste.
Anyway, yet again the weather has changed, far more favourably for our side of the course and potentially is leaving the likes of Brunel higher and slightly drier on the left but only time will really tell this does allow us to commit more to our ideal plan.
This is going to be another epic finish with the teams exceptionally close and possibly a full foam up coming in. Will be awesome to watch as - fingers crossed - we arrive in daylight.
Libby at the Nav desk#
ETA: 27th 2000 UTC
Miles to go: 856nm
Days to go: 3.5 days but apparently the last one doesn't count according
to Alex
Freeze dried meal of the day: Sweet 'n' Sour mmmmmm
Treat of the day: Dairy Milk
Wildlife:zero :-(
No. of hot chocolates consumed: 3
fastest peak speed: 22kt