Slow day ahead

Volvo Ocean Race boats diverge en route to Sri Lanka

The Volvo Ocean Race six continue to trickle along, making around 9-11 knots as they head for the southern tip of India and the next turning mark of the course off Sri Lanka. Charles Caudrelier's crew on Dongfeng Race Team continues to lead the charge with 882 miles to go to bottom of Sri Lanka and continuing to hold a three mile lead over second-placed Team Brunel.

Generally the last 24 hours have seen more 'formation flying' between the VO65s as they have all taken the wind slowly veering into the NNE, to turn onto a SSEerly heading, now paralleling the Indian coastline, some 326 miles offshore (for Dongfeng). 

In addition teams are taking different options in terms of their west-east split, with Dongfeng holding the middle ground, Team Brunel spearing off slightly to the east, while navigtor Jean-Luc Nelias on backmarker MAPFRE is choosing a course furthest west. However the width of the race course, or the distance between these two tracks only represents around 35 miles.

While the boats are beginning to split from the great circle route to the next turning mark, part of the reason for this is that over the course of the next 24 hours the boats will see the wind dropping once again, before filling in from the east tomorrow morning. While previous forecasts indicated that wind might fill in from the west side of the course, it is now looking like it will come from the east, but as this is is high pressure the crews are dealing with, the forecasts are unlikely to be accurate. The advantage of Team Brunel's tactic is that being closer to the great circle will mean that they sail less miles. 

Positions at 0655 UTC:

Image below courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

Matt Knighton reports from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing: 

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE In two weeks when we’re beating up the Vietnamese coast we’ll likely be missing these luxurious Indian Ocean conditions. The skies are clear and the sun not too hot, you can sleep at night without needing a blanket, and the waves are so minimal you can walk perfectly upright below deck even while still doing 15 knots.  Still, if you are ever still wondering if you’ve reached this ocean racing 'Nirvana', here are four surefire ways to tell:

 There’s still coffee. That’s not to say in previous legs our rationing is off, it’s just that usually in rough weather the guys drink much more caffeine because they can’t sleep. So far this leg there’s still several scoops left in the container when we go to refill it.  They’re sawing logs down below for 12 hours a day.

There are no seats in the nav station.  Typically you can squeeze into one side of the nav station and take a look at routings or emails but so far this leg it’s been the permanent home of Sifi and Ian.  Even up on deck SiFi will have command of the screen on his mirrored tablet.  Conclusion: the sailing isn’t as exciting so they’re resorting to more video games.

You can have seconds (or thirds) for most meals. Less sail manoeuveres mean less grinding which means fewer calories burned which means less calories consumed. Take a look at our day bag and they guys are grazing the lighter foods and leaving some of their meals uneaten because their bodies don’t need the 5,000+ daily calories.

If you’re not experiencing these conditions… you’re probably already around Sri Lanka and we’ll see you in a few days.