Dongfeng breaks away

But there's a soft 36 hours in store for the Volvo Ocean Race boats

The light patch on Monday night that caused the boats to flounder in the lee of Sri Lanka, has left the Volvo Ocean Race in the odd situation of having a run-away leader in Charles Caudrelier's worthy Dongfeng Race Team - 8 miles ahead of the pack on Monday night, but at the latest sched this morning, 42 miles in front, with, conversely, Team SCA having dropped off the rear of the fleet - 34 miles from fifth place at the latest sched, but with a compression in the mid-fleet that remains - with just 14 miles separating second placed Team Brunel from fifth placed Team Alvimedica.

Yesterday, Dongfeng Race Team skipper Caudrelier reported: "Two more obstacles to jump on our route to our home port of Sanya. The wind shadows of India and Sri Lanka are behind us. The wind like a river doesn’t like obstacles, and they try to go around them leaving a wind hole behind the mountain ranges and some big accelerations on the sides. We passed the 3000m peaks of Sri Lanka 300km off to avoid this trap and despite that we went through a 100km long windless area.

Image below (click to enlarge) courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

"Even if we were very afraid in the night when we saw the lights of Brunel and Azzam at just a few kms from us, we managed to get through first and rebuild our lead. Now we are aiming for the entrance to the Malacca Straits, about five days away, and there again there will be very light winds and a complex piece of navigation to manage. A difficult transition between northerly and easterly winds too.

"Dongfeng means the east wind, so we are hoping to be well looked after. Onboard we are focused but tired from the constant battle of nerves, nothing is ever for keeps on this leg, we need to fight for another 15 days to get our boat home."

Unfortunately the wind has gone soft across the fleet again with Dongfeng currently registering 10 knots of boat speed in 9 knots of wind from the NNW, the wind the same strength but slightly left of what Team SCA is seeing at the back of the pack. And the forecast has it going lighter still as the boats get stuck in the shallowest of depressions, which seems to be offering little or no gradient pressure and which is likely to cause another compression in the fleet. There seems to be little reprieve for the boats which, according to the forecast, seem set to be parked until the early hours of Friday morning, when a light breeze will fill in from the northeast, veering into the east before backing into the northeast once again (ie on the nose).

Matt Knighton reports from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing:

We’re still learning these boats. As the winds eased in the lee of Sri Lanka and the fleet compressed to within a few miles of one another, the battle to be king of the AIS was ensuing once again.

The day hadn’t had a great start. The neck seal on Parko’s smock had torn down the side and his electrical tape patch job wasn’t holding up. Meanwhile, Daryl was sealing a hole in our fresh water tank – a frustrating process going slower than expected. Then, up on deck in a bit of frenzy, Ian was verbally processing every small drop in boat speed. Things were tense.

However, Ian was on to something. As he started to hone in on small changes, the distance to Brunel began to decrease and the motivation to reel them in was contagious. The mood changed.

The watches rotated quickly and everyone was eager to dial in Azzam to maximize performance, even if it meant re-learning things we thought we knew.

Key to this analysis, Neal was on deck and in a performance cadence with Ian at the helm. The two of them were fast to note different set-ups the boat preferred over others.

“It’s moding – tanks, trim, fore and aft weights, sail combinations – the lessons we learned today we thought we’d already learned but sometimes you need to re-learn those things”, said Neal.

As the team’s Performance Director, it’s a chance for him to see first hand the quirkiness inherent in the Volvo Ocean 65. With the wind predicted to die from behind soon, he had added motivation to help figure out how to get in front and stay in front quickly.

“There is lots of tweaking, lots of modes to play with, conditions change. We had a few little lessons to learn today and it’s much more interesting being a part of it than reading about it at the end of the leg.”