Long slow march north

Volvo Ocean Race frontrunners find the shift they've been long awaiting

Image above courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

The last 24 hours has seen a general compression between the six remaining boats in the Volvo Ocean Race with Iker Martinez's back marker, MAPFRE closing to 76 miles of race leader, Ian Walker's Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing compared to 120 miles yesterday morning. The race, which continues in what must seem like perpetual light airs, has now turned into three races within one. 

As ever there is the race between the lead trio - Abu Dhabi, clearly hungry for a leg win into their homeport, while Bouwe Bekking's crew on Team Brunel remain locked in competition with that of Charles Caudrelier on Dongfeng Race Team. Impressive, considering they have almost been at sea for three weeks, is that just three miles separate this group in terms of DTF. But for the crews there's big news this morning. Having been forging northeast since Saturday....finally they have passed the midway-point up the western side of the ultra-shallow area of low pressure and with this they have since the wind veer through more than 90° into the WSW. After four days on starboard gybe, they have now gybed on to port on to a more northerly course. Better still - while the wind remains at 5-8 knots, just a few more miles up the course (at around 5°S) the wind is forecast to fill in slightly...

Meanwhile MAPFRE's brave crew remains some 145 miles off to the SSE of the lead group and is approaching the latitude of the Chagos Archipelego. The Spanish team put in a couple of small hitches to get north in the early hours of this morning but at the 0940 UTC sched was continuing northwest with the wind still from the southeast. However compared to the frontrunner she was sailing in better pressure - around 10 knots. According to the weather files MAPFRE should already be into the southwesterlies the frontrunners are seeing however the GRIBS tend not to be overly accurate for this remote area of the Indian Ocean.

Off to the west a private match race is developing between Sam Davies' crew on Team SCA and Team Alvimedica. Just after midnight Team SCA gybed northeast and at around 0800 crossed comfortably ahead of the Turkish-US VO65, that is continuing northeast on starboard gybe. These two boats are still seeing sub-10 knot wind but with the breeze already having clocked round to 190°.

Looking ahead - the forecast indicates that the westerly pressure should fill in slightly once the boats are north of 5°S and this breeze looks set to carry them across the Equator before they reach the Doldrums - currently at around 4-5°N.

Matt Knighton reported at 0500 from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing:

Both of the sails up in the air on Azzam are making a rhythmical slapping sound as they search for breeze. Every several seconds they fill enough to stop flapping and send a shudder through the whole hull only to quickly go back to waving around, searching for wind. Below them, we all have found our own space to claim to escape the beating heat of the equatorial sun; a dance that changes every 2 hours when the new watch come on and we need to rotate positions.

Daryl and Justin and the 'on' watch and are taking the brunt of the midday sun. This is the worst spot on the boat: driving and trimming in a cockpit with no shade from the sunlight above and a white deck that reflects every ray of light into your eyes. In the light breeze, the two in this position have to have their minds sharp to optimize the boat as it speeds at 4 knots.

In the midst of the silence, Justin breaks. “Surely this takes more patience than golf…so why is it I can’t complete 18 holes? I think I need to give it a try again.”

The other two crewmembers who are up on deck, in this case SiFi and Chuny, are in the 'front row seats' sitting on the sail stack on the bow. While still in the sunlight (unless you’re clever enough to build a tent), this spot has the added perk of a slight breeze that cools you down. IF you can find shade here, you’re in the secret spot and should not tell anyone.

Then you have the rest of the four guys, down below deck in the shade resting. This is not ideal and might be worse than up on deck because of one decisive factor: there’s no breeze. Everyone is in the bow to maximise weight balance so the bunk fans are out of range. You just get baked. The goal here: minimise your energy expenditure and hope the guys up on deck…find the wind.

Yann Riou reports from Dongfeng Race Team

Stuck in the mud!

That image sums up extremely well the situation we find ourselves in. Stuck in the mud for the last two days, we have to almost result to violence to make use of every little puff of wind we find to drag ourselves slowly north. And the worst, as the metaphor ends there, is that its via lots of tacks and gybes that we are advancing, the direction therefore hardly ever actually in the direction we want to actually go.

All that for what ? To throw ourselves in to the ITCZ, the Doldrums, which this Indian Ocean version is known for lots of things EXCEPT speed records ! So we are struggling to remain patient. Our luck is though to be in contact with two other boats. That at least allows us to focus short term on putting them behind us. For the moment we are failing to do it !

"It will be a shame if it ends in a lottery" (Charles )

There is no clear meteorological system coming in to place, a huge zone of no wind gradient on one side, and the Doldrums on the other. So we have to be fast, but we need a little bit of luck to succeed in this crazy game !

that has occurred is that they have seen the wind