The Ocean Race: Fast rides - but not for long as both classes battle for the lead

by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 31 May 2021 02:45 PDT 31 May 2021

The Ocean Race Europe. Leg 1 from Lorient, France, to Cascais, Portugal. On Board Sailing Poland © Adam Burdylo / Sailing Poland

The dynamics of the 12 boat fleet in The Ocean Race have come into play on the opening 36 hours of the first leg from Lorient, France to Cascias, Portugal.

The five boat IMOCA fleet are foiling in the fresher 18-21kt breeze prevailing at 0330 UTC with the lead IMOCA60 11th Hour Racing hitting speeds of over 20kts.

However that pace is not expected to continue with the winds expected to drop to 8kts around midday UTC on Monday. But it will crack in again after nightfall hitting 20kts again as the boats make what is expected to be their final approach to the virtual rounding mark, 480nm west of Cape Finesterre before they head for the finish at Cascais, Portugal.

There are two classes in the event - the one design VO65 and the IMOCA60 - and each would appear to have the advantage in different conditions.

In the fresher breeze the IMOCA's can get up and partially foil, however one of the IMOCA 60's, Offshore Team Germany is not fitted with foils, but is only sailing about 1kt slower than the two lead boats 11th Hour Racing and Linked Out.

In the VO65's Mirpuri has led from the start of the race, but is the only boat in the seven strong fleet with a new suit of sails. The rest are sailing with the same sails used in the 2017/18 Volvo Ocean Race, but six of the VO65's have a new light air asymmetrical sail which appears to be a very good additional to their wardrobe.

In the lighter airs that prevailed during the second day, the light air sail gave the VO65's an advantage over the IMOCA's who have to contend with the drag of their scimitar-like foils which cannot be retracted, but can be rotated by 5% to reduce drag somewhat.

Overnight the fleet has been in a drag race for the virtual mark, once they cleared Cape Finisterre and its attendant exclusion zone. That done they set off on the fastest possible course for the virtual mark, with boatspeed and VMG (effective speed to the mark) being almost identical.

While the IMOCA's started foiling away from the VO65's from around 0300UTC and had a few kts advantage however a couple of hours later that had reduced as dawn approached and the top VO65, Mirpuri turned in a boat speed of 20kts - matching the IMOCA's.

Currently 0500UTC, the lead boat Linked Out is sailing out of the fresh breeze and into a patch of lighter air with the crew having to make some decisions on sailing a longer course at a faster speed rather than just taking the Great Circle route to the virtual mark. According to the weather routing function of Predictwind, Mirpuri also has a similar call to make with one of her course options going well to the north - adding about 3-4nm to the distance sailed but giving a faster speed, and minimising the time spent in predicted light airs, which will likely trap all competitors in the next 36 hours.

Once around the virtual mark the crews will have some difficult decisions, with two and a half days left in the race and 850nm to sail as of 0600UTC on May 31. The routing generally recommends that the boats stay south of the Great Circle route to Cascais to stay in touch with a front that moves through the race area with the maximum windspeed expected to blow at 22-25kts in gusts and getting down to 3-5kts.

To make matters more complex there is an exclusion zone around Cascais that is awkward for boats to negotiate coming in from the south as the routing recommends.

The takeout from the first 36 hours of racing in The Ocean race Europe is that the IMOCA60's are surprising close in performance to the one design VO65's, but there are significant differences between the two types which come into play in different conditions, making for intriguing racing.

Overall TORE is more a race between twelve 60fters, than it is between two divisions/classes that happen to be going to the same port.

That situation is expected to be reflected at the finish, with Predictwind calculating that the two types have about 58-60hrs of sailing time left, with a finish late afternoon, early evening on June 2 UTC.

PostScript: By 1100UTC on May 31 the wind lightened. While the IMOCA60's enjoyed a 26nm lead over Mirpuri, the leading VO65, that was expected to last about 4hrs, with the two VO65's travelling at 11.7kts compared to the 7.7kts of the IMOCA's. Linked Out has 731.9nm to sail to the finish at Cascais after rounding a virtual mark some 480nm west of Cape Finnestere. The Ocean Race are using Great Circle method of calculating the distance to sail to the finish, rather than the more complicated but accurate method of calculating the predicted finish time by sailing the boat through its optimised route taking account of the prevailing/predicted weather and optimising the boats course and speed using a stored polar for the boat.