Big tack north

MAPFRE starts to mix it up again as the Volvo Ocean Race boats head for the Vietnamese coast

The lure of stronger winds and making miles more efficiently to the finish has led the Volvo Ocean Race boats to tack north over the last 24 hours.

First to put a tentative hitch north yesterday mid-morning UTC was race leaer Dongfeng Race Team after passing the Anambas Islands, where there are three marks of the course, forcing the boats to leave the islands to port. However Charles Caudrelier's team finally committed to their northerly tack at 1300 UTC, followed around an hour later by the chasing pack, with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing going first and MAPFRE last of the four at around 1530 UTC, taking up position slightly further east.

Since then the lead five have continued on this tack with MAPFRE continuing to mix it up, putting in another hitch to the east - great to see navigator Jean-Luc Nelias on the Spanish boat having the confidence to do their own thing rather than sticking with the pack.

At the latest sched Dongfeng Race Team has 18 knots of norteasterly wind and is currently around 180 miles off the southern tip of Vietnam with 742 miles to go to the finish in Sanya. She holds a 52 mile lead over second placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, Ian Walker's team finally eeking out a 5 miles lead over third place - now Team Alvimedica, in turn three miles ahead of fourth placed Team Brunel.

It seems likely that the boats will sail some way into the Vietnamese coast before tacking, too close and they risk falling into the lee of the land and if they tack they will be on a lifting tack, with the wind forecast to back into the north as they sail up the Vietnamese coast.

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

Charles Caudelier reports from Dongfeng Race Team:

A little scare today that reminded us that the finish line is still a long way awa. - a line broke – one which could have badly ripped our headsail.

Certainly a few miles lost, and a little increase in adrenalin, but some great work by the team to solve the problem.

The latest computer routings suggest 4 days 19 hours to get to Sanya. From land that might look like its not far away, but from here onboard Dongfeng, we can see a lot of obstacles and traps to get past before imagining a victory despite our good lead.

The weather is complicated near Sanya, very light winds.

We are going to sail along the Vietnamese coast in 48 hours time. My worst memory from the last Volvo Ocean Race. We have to go close to the coast to avoid adverse tidal currents, and make the most of an expected wind rotation. I remember doing more than 30 tacks in 20 hours in 2011! Each tack means we move nearly 1000 kg of kit from one side of the boat to the other, 5 sails across the deck and the rest of the kit inside the boat – including our tooth brushes! And all that in less than 3 minutes.

But above all the big risk along the coast will be the risk of collision with debris in the water – lots of dead trees and debris coming from the forests covering this area, and rivers that flow in to the sea.

And then there are the fishermen, many of them in their badly lit boats. Sometimes it can be a real slalom between the boats and their nets.

So onboard Dongfeng we must stay concentrated, and we will try to make the most of the next 36 hours in a straight line to rest before attacking this next difficult zone.

Matt Knighton reports from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing: 

As the tension of the final days of this leg grows, Ian is spending more time than usual in the nav station aboard Azzam. He comes down below to take a look no fewer than every 15 minutes and at the same time reminds everyone to stay in the bunks and keep our weight out. The race for second place will be decided by minutes, not hours.

Our tack towards Sanya last night seemingly didn’t do us any favours. Following the routing and wanting to lay past several islands in the South China Sea we tacked on a wind shift. Alvimedica, Brunel, and MAPFRE went past our line and then tacked.

Now we’ve been beating north as the leeward boat, nervous they’ll get new wind before we do and work over the top of us towards Vietnam. MAPFRE  especially went very far east…an outlier that has Ian doing even more math on the computers below.

“The best thing we can do over the next day is work our way up to their lines and take the risk out of it”, Ian said. Similar to other tactical decisions we’ve made, now is not the time gamble – we’re going to methodically defend our lead the whole way up the Vietnamese coastline.

We’re bashing our way upwind across the South China Sea bouncing across the tops of the waves. The violence of some of the hits shakes the whole boat but everyone lies fast asleep to windward, still recovering from the Singapore Straights.

Small victories are the skeds that show we’ve gained maybe a mile or so in the past 6 hours. The upwind speeds are so similar across the fleet; we’ll be looking at each other the rest of the way to Sanya.