The west pays

Out of the Doldrums, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Team Brunel lead the charge to Fernando de Noronha

Images above courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

Looking back on the opening leg of this Volvo Ocean Race, it is likely that the lengthy passage through the Doldrums will be seen as the defining moment. Heading out further to the west Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Team Brunel may possibly have made their leg winning moves, with the southeasterlies finally filling in for them at around 3°N yesterday morning, at roughly the same time as the appropriately-named Team Vestas Wind, at that point some 145 miles to their ENE.

Surpisingly the boats behind them also seemed to reach the southeasterlies at around this time, only much further north, but these teams, which chose the supposedly safe option of the middle ground crossed suffered considerably more earlier on in their respective Doldrums crossings. As a result fourth placed Team Dongfeng exited the Doldrums some 157 miles behind the leader Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, with MAPFRE and Team Alvimedica some 180 miles behind and Sam Davies' crew on Team SCA 207 miles from Ian Walker's team in terms of DTF.

Given what a major shake-up the Doldrums has had, it is likely that in future Doldrums crossings - remember that, in visiting the Middle and Far East, this round the world race has four of them, rather than the two of conventional circumnavigations - we can expect to see teams making these crossings in a much more strategic way, sticking together more as a pack than they did on this occasion.

With the Doldrums ticked off, the boats are now into the southeasterly Trades which typically build and back the further south they sail (ie a rich get richer scenario). The wild card is Team Vestas Wind, which having done so well out in the east (a big hand to navigator Wouter Verbraak) has been able to sail a hotter angle and as a result has been taking miles out of the leaders continually since yesterday evening. At the latest sched for example she is making 16 knots to ADOR and Brunel's 14 and from being 100 miles off the lead at the end of yesterday afternoon, is this morning 76 miles from ADOR, with more gains to come over the course of today.

While much hoopla will be being made of the Equator crossing and King Neptune's gordy antics, crew's minds will now be focussed on the next mark of the course - leaving to port the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, lying some 220 miles off the coast of Brazil.

At 06:40 UTC these were the distances the boats had to go to the rounding: 

1. ADOR 106.7 miles
2. Brunel 116.9 miles
3. Vestas 190 miles
4. Dongfeng 269 miles
5. MAPFRE 300 miles
6. Alvimedia 307 miles
7. SCA 335 miles

However each team's navigator will at present be pouring over the weather charts to try and anticipate what will be the best course down the South Atlantic and into the Southern Ocean. This is mostly about movement of the St Helena high pressure.

Currently the high is in a transition period, its centre having disappeared off to the southeast, now down in the Southern Ocean, southwest of South Africa. However another area of high pressure has formed behind it, directly east of southern Brazil, so effectively there is at the moment an Atlantic-wide anticyclonic barrier blocking the route of the boats south. Thankfully this will not last.

While the high consolidates in the centre of the South Atlantic over Sunday and into Monday, a Southern Ocean depression is forecast to creep northeast towards South Africa on Tuesday, causing the high to head southwest before it consolidates mid-South Atlantic once again on Thursday. The good news is that the depression looks set to cause more circulation around the high so by the time the boats are sailing down its western flank they will be doing so in 20-30 knot winds. And with the high generally edging east, this means that the boats behind may have an opportunity to regain some miles by sailing a shorter course than the front runners.

From Matt Knighton on board Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing:

King Neptune has a new “Shellback” in his Kingdom.  I know it’s hard to believe, but somehow I made the cut.

With the Equator trudging towards us with relentless persistence, the threat of my impending punishment and purification inched all the more closer with every skid.  Steeped in tradition, the “Crossing the Line” ceremony is traditionally where sailors who have not yet sailed across the Equator (called Pollywogs) are met by King Neptune and his “Court of Shellbacks” on deck and forced to atone for theirs sins.

Being that I was the only one on-board who had not crossed the Equator before and was also American.  I had a lot to atone for.

For days now, the guys on Azzam have been keeping a running tally on our whiteboard of “Matt’s Sins” and it seemed to grow longer every day.  You could tell they were pretty excited for this.   An excerpt of my favorites:

-Makes *$&% coffee
-The Vietnam War
-Fake Moon Landing

You can see what I was dealing with.

Images do a better job at conveying my purification experience but surmise it to say, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends to be inducted by and I’m proud to be counted among their ranks…

…and I’m pretty sure my new haircut improves our aerodynamic performance.