Star Burst

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet split up.

At the end of their normal display of inch-perfect formation flying, the Red Arrows aerobatic team more often than not conclude their performance with the ‘Star Burst’ manoeuvre. Coming in low towards the crowd, the perfectly parallel smoke trails from the nine aircraft explode into a huge fan as the small red jets disappear across the horizon in all directions. Down in the South Atlantic, the Volvo Ocean Race fleet have performed their own version of the ‘Star Burst’ with the five leading boats all heading in different directions.
Until now, there has been an obvious and well defined track to follow with both the weather models and onboard routing software largely agreeing which way to go. Those who have strayed from this well-defined track have largely paid the price. Now everything has changed. Different models are showing variations in the behaviour of the South Atlantic High, the controlling influence on the weather in the region. Although the different weather routing programs seem roughly agreed on the right route, the answer they give flies in the face history.

Historically, the quickest way to Cape Town is to sail slowly south and then blast across the southern edge of the high pressure, riding one of the notorious low pressure systems that sweep the Southern Ocean. This is exactly what Paul Cayard did to win the first leg aboard EF Language in the last race. The alternative is a long slow beat across the northern edge of the high pressure system albeit on more direct route.

The problem facing the navigators is this: the high pressure system is much further south than usual necessitating a diversion of over a thousand miles to get to the strong winds. “All predictions say that it is impossible to get south because of a col (a windless hole between two weather systems),” reports Mark Christensen from illbruck. The shorter northerly route will be upwind all the way, almost certainly in light airs. Worryingly, if the South Atlantic High moves back north to its more usual position, boats half way along this route will be trapped in the centre of the high in little or no wind. Who would be a navigator now?

In the short term the winner in all this is Grant Dalton aboard Amer Sports One who now holds a tenuous one-mile lead from previous race leader illbruck. That Dalton was 71 miles behind just 24 hours ago is proof, if any were needed, as to just how big the gains and losses have been.

Biggest loser has been News Corporation. On rounding Trinidade Jez Fanstone and Ross Field elected to tack to the north. Realising that they were on something of a nasty header, they then tacked back to the south. The problem was, that was a nasty header too. Those club sailors who all too often seem to find themselves tacking on a constant series of headers will be relieved to find that it can happen to the best of them. “The six hourly skeds are as stressful as being investigated by the tax department every six hours,” reports Field from onboard. “How did you make a gain there? How did you make a loss there? Have you declared every thing that you have gained? Shall we suffer a loss here to make a gain there? And it goes on,” he adds.

While Dalton will be delighted to get back in touch with the leading pack, the real battle now is not for position on the leader board, but for position on the track. Assa Abloy have resolutely pushed out to the east sailing relatively fast. The most northerly boat in the fleet, they may well have made a decision to get east in the hope that a small low pressure system predicted by some weather models may split the high pressure and give them a lane of breeze towards Cape Town.

For all the leading five boats one of the biggest concern now comes in the potential appearance of Robin Hood on the course. An audacious robbery of the rich by the poor is still just possible. While the leading five tack and thrash about in light winds, Amer Sports Too, djuice and Team SEB are sill charging down to the turning mark at Trinidade with good pace. When they arrive it is just possible that the much hoped for corridor through the complex weather systems will have revealed itself, providing an obvious route to Cape Town for the boats at the back. The real question then will be, how many if any of the leading group have parked up or been overwhelmed by the area of high pressure.

No matter where the high pressure is on the course, you can be sure that the navigator on every boat will be feeling under more pressure now than at any stage of the race. The minute gains and losses made through more developed sails, better trimming, smarter helming or a lighter boat will count for nothing now as compared to picking that one vital shift. Though listed only as a bowman aboard Tyco, Guy Salter seems to have as good a grip as anyone on what is going on. "We have a difficult few days ahead," he says. "The battle starts again and could go any way for the top five boats to see who will lead the pack back across the Atlantic."

Similarly, Mark Rudiger is not wrong when he says, "It will be very interesting to see how everyone deals with the open space now and the numerous options." Like the Red Arrows, everyone must now be hoping that entire formation can return to base in time for the next display.

Positions 1600 hrs 16 Oct