News

April 6, 2006

Click below to see the sail.tv video….
http://asf.narrowstep.tv/mcp?psid=6024479&ref=0&chid=17&pid=528&vid=5711720&br=400&tid=1&void=13458

INTO THE TRADES

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:03:20 UTC

At the 2200GMT poll last night it appeared as though movistar had broken through into the south easterly trade winds and it was confirmed by the 0400GMT poll this morning. In the intervening period the rest of the fleet broke through and all are now reaching with the true wind on or just forward of the beam, blowing just under ten knots.

The true performance of the Volvo Open 70 is on display once more, performance that in the past had been the sole province of the racing multihull, not the world girdling monohull.

Currently the Volvo Open 70s are all sailing two knots faster than the true wind in which they sail. In the old days of this race, the 80 ft maxis, with huge crews and massive sail areas, couldn’t get anywhere these speeds and certainly couldn’t sail faster than the wind. Even the previous generation of boats in this race, the Volvo Ocean 60s, could come nowhere near. The Open 60’s too, those single handed or crewed boats beloved of the French racers, can’t manage this level of performance These 70 footers are taking ocean racing into new territory.

And it’s not just speed. At the moment, less than five hours sailing separates front to back with about a quarter of the race gone. They are about 475 nautical miles from the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha and, while movistar is holding on to a solid lead at the moment, virtually any of the six boats could take the maximum 3.5 points up for grabs.

During the last six hour period, the leaders took advantage of getting into the trades first by pulling away initially, but now all the boats are settling into their stride we will see if the fabled reaching power of the Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed boats is all it’s cracked up to be.

But, while the winds might not be quite up to the range in which the JK boats might be at their best, about ten knots of wind is the spot at which the Farr-designed boats were optimised, according to ex-skipper of Ericsson, Neal McDonald.

A quick analysis of the 1000GMT position report show who’s doing well and who isn’t quite so hot.

movistar has to be the benchmark as she is leading and as she is the Farr boat with the narrowest waterline beam and with the small chines – hard angles in the sections aft that provide power in reaching conditions – which set her apart from Ericsson, Pirates of the Caribbean and Brasil 1. movistar is using those advantages well, taking

ground – between three and five miles – from almost all the boats. But it is the boat that she isn’t taking miles from that is the one to be feared.

Mike Sanderson’s ABN AMRO ONE is in third place and, while she hasn’t gained on the leader, she is the only boat to hold her own.

The 1000GMT positions were as follows: movistar leads by 18 miles from Pirates, having taken a further five miles from the American boat. Their 24 hour run up to 1000GMT is 227 miles. Then comes ABN AMRO ONE, 26 miles from the leader – same as at 0400GMT – and five miles closer to Pirates. Their 24 hour run is the biggest of the day at 230.

Ericsson and Brasil 1 are in sight of each other, 31 and 34 miles from the leader respectively, having lost five and three miles in six hours. ABN AMRO TWO, furthest to the east, have lost nine miles to the leader and are now 59 miles behind.

Emails

New Ericsson skipper John Kostecki has taken the time out to send us all an email about life on board. They, probably in concert with all the boats, are worried about water consumption – and with a hopefully unique toilet trouble. . . “After a long period of very light winds and difficult clouds the breeze has finally filled in a little more consistently although its still under ten knots.

“The extra breeze helps to cool the boat in general and during the night the temperature inside the boat is a very comfortable 20 degrees which allows everyone to get some sleep and get ready for the heat of the day, where the temperatures peek at around 25 or even higher.

“The amount of water we are consuming is above our calculations, which means more battery power which in turn means more fuel; something that we have a very finite supply of. We are also making very slow progress in general and at this rate we would take 21 days to complete the leg which would mean rationing for certain.

“It’s a little too early to panic, however, and the forecast looks much more like we would expect once we get closer to the scoring waypoint in a couple of days.

“Everything else onboard is good other than poor Richard Mason having to deal with a very unpleasant situation with the toilet!

“It’s going to be a close race into Fernando and every boat will have its own mini race within a race going on to hold off someone or make a move on someone else. Its great racing though and we hope for much more of the same.”

Mike Sanderson has sent us an email that details how ABN AMRO ONE managed to get from last to third yesterday, “Today (5 April) more than any of the previous few days, has been all about picking your way through or, more to the point, working the clouds.

“Previously we had considered, on average, to be pretty cautious with them. Yes there were gains to be made if you got yourself positioned just right, but generally speaking it was better to stay away as often the gain from a cloud was paid for by an even bigger light spot after it.

“Today, however, as we were analysing our situation from the back of the pack, we decided that maybe our approach was just too conservative. The day before we had seen both Ericsson and Brasil 1 come from a long way behind us and by the end of the day pretty much on the horizon in front, so today we decided would be all about attacking the clouds. Taking them on head to head, going into them as far as we dared to pick up the stronger breezes. At times getting it wrong and having the wind do a 180 degree shift on us and we would have the gennaker all wrapped up in the rig.

“Then once right in the middle of this huge cloud, we were faced with a water spout, a mini tornado that was spinning on the water, sucking sea water all the way up into the cloud, looking more like something out of the movie Twister or maybe even the Wizard of Oz than an ocean racing scene.

“Anyway I would hate to think how many sail changes we did, or how many gybes even more the point, as at times we would gybe just for as short a distance as 100 meters, just looking to stay in a very narrow corridor of wind. Right now though it looks like all our hard work and our new approach has paid off as on the latest position report we are in 3rd place having passed ABN AMRO TWO, Brasil 1 and Ericsson, and having made some nice gains on the Pirates and movistar.”

On board Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard is another one obsessed with clouds, but for him, the worst is astern as the Black Pearl sails in the trades, “It was a light a variable day today with winds as light as three knots.

“There is always a lot of anxiety when you have that little wind as you wonder what everyone else has. Today we had to fight our way through a large cell of little to no wind in order to hook into the trades.

“We could see the cumulus clouds that mark the trades all day, but at boat speeds that were as low as three knots at times, it took us all day to go 40 miles. About 1600 local time we went under a cloud line and on the other side were the beautiful trades waiting to take us away.

“We are now doing 12 knots of speed in nine knots of wind at 80 true wind angle. These boats are machines in this wind speed.

“All in all, we had a pretty good day against the fleet today. At the 1000GMT sked, there was compression as we all closed in on movistar who hit the light patch first. On the 1600GMT sked ABN AMRO ONE and Ericsson made a nice move on the west side of the group, probably getting to leeward of a cloud that had rain coming out of it. On the 2200GMT sked, movistar extended three miles on us and ABN AMRO ONE gained one mile on us and we gained on the rest of the fleet. They still had very light wind at the time of the sked so we may have extended even more since then.

“We are now kind of on autopilot for the next 48 hours. We are aiming straight at Fernando de Noronha, the island off Brazil that we have to leave to port and that counts as a scoring gate. The wind will lift and head a little over the course to Fernando, but there are no more major tactical decisions left to make until we leave Fernando. So it is all about setting the boat up to get maximum performance for the given wind speed and angle.

“The sea is smooth so good for sleeping. And that is where I am off to next.”
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