G-Strings and Ambre Solaire

Sodebo slips behind IDEC as she closes on the Brazilian coast

Thursday March 17th 2011, Author: James Boyd, Location: none selected

Image above courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems and PredictWind.

Date Lat Long Spd Crs Spd Spd Dist DTF v IDEC
      Inst   4hr 24 hours      
17/03/2011 07:00 10°59.55'S 035°58.36'W 18 341° 17.6 15.2 365.8 4 028 -37.9
17/03/2011 05:15 11°29.53'S 035°52.93'W 18.1 356° 17.2 15.3 366.5 4 054 -28.6
17/03/2011 03:00 12°09.83'S 035°52.13'W 18.3 354° 15.7 15.4 369.1 4 091 -21.1
17/03/2011 01:15 12°40.70'S 035°48.80'W 17.1 352° 13.8 15.4 369.6 4 120 -14.2
16/03/2011 23:00 13°15.43'S 035°40.70'W 14.3 344° 13.3 13.7 328.4 4 152 3.5
16/03/2011 21:00 13°41.17'S 035°28.87'W 13.3 325° 14.4 12.3 294.5 4 175 21.3
16/03/2011 19:00 13°56.81'S 035°09.38'W 12.6 298° 15.7 11.1 265.7 4 188 51.6
16/03/2011 17:00 14°13.45'S 034°44.42'W 16.1 313° 16.5 10.2 245.9 4 201 75.6
16/03/2011 15:15 14°31.12'S 034°21.74'W 15.7 306° 16.9 9.7 232.2 4 216 94.4
16/03/2011 13:00 14°52.89'S 033°51.64'W 17 309° 17.4 9.7 232.2 4 235 115
16/03/2011 11:00 15°15.89'S 033°24.68'W 18.4 311° 17.1 10.2 243.7 4 256 132.3
16/03/2011 09:00 15°41.42'S 033°00.18'W 16.2 322° 16.7 11 263.9 4 279 144.9
16/03/2011 07:00 16°09.29'S 032°38.04'W 16.8 323° 15 11.9 286.5 4 306 151.6

He's behind again. As we suspected yesterday Thomas Coville and Sodebo's difficult 24 hours on the wind have put him back behind Francis Joyon and IDEC as they fight to get around Recife. Rather than tack back out to sea yesterday, Coville has in fact ploughed on towards the Brazilian coastline and the chart above makes it very evident why - inshore there is more breeze and Sodebo has been able to pick up a significant lift.

At the latest sched Sodebo is 42 miles off the coast. Coville will be forced to tack soon on to a very painful port tack and won't be able to go far offshore as he will both be headed and the pressure will drop. So it looks like he will have a delightful day 'short tacking' (in ocean racing terms) his 105ft trimaran. Coville basically needs to make about 150 miles to weather before he can firstly past Recife (184 miles away) and secondly get offshore more where the breeze looks stronger.

Meanwhile of course, virtual Francis has been forging north, east enough to be able to pass Recife and making 20 knots. So unfortunately we can expect Sodebo to fall back further today...

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