Volvo Ocean Race, Doldrums days
Equipo TelefonicaEricsson RacingGreen Dragon RacingOceanoPuma Ocean RacingTeam Delta LloydTeam RussiaVelaVolvo Ocean Race 25 Novembre 2008 Zerogradinord 0
[singlepic=882,250,170,,left] Volvo Ocean Race – Oceano Indiano – Velocità che diminuiscono sensibilmente, anemometri che riportano venti inferiori ai dieci nodi e temperature che aumentano di ora in ora. Benvenuti nei Doldrums, una volta ancora. E non sarà l’ultima.
Come sempre accade quando l’incognita è rappresentata dalle calme equatoriali, chi è davanti subisce la rimonta di chi insegue. Ecco spiegato come mai tutti si sono avvicinati alla coppia di testa, al punto da evocare in Anders Lewander, skipper di Ericsson 3, compagno di fuga di Ericsson 4, i fantasmi della prima tappa, quando il suo scafo entrò nei Doldrums da secondo e ne uscì sesto, gettando al vento punti preziosi ai fini della classifica generale. Preoccupazioni fondate, visto che Il Mostro, salito a centro gruppo assieme a Green Dragon, è ora lontano solo otto miglia e Telefonica Blue, preceduto verso ovest dall’attardato Telefonica Black, è a meno di venti.
Tra l’altro, chi insegue, oltre a trarre vantaggio dal ritirarsi della brezza, può studiare la situazione meteo sulla base dei progressi fatti dagli avversari e adottare scelte tattiche alternative. E’ il caso di Team Russia che, muovendo dalle retrovie, conta di tagliare i Doldrums attorno ai 79° di longitudine est, dove navigatori ed esperti hanno individuato un interessante canale d’aria. Certo, per giungere in tempo all’appuntamento con il treno verso Cochin, Kosatka dovrà percorrere parecchia strada in più, ma lo farà assistita sino all’ultimo dal vento e dalla consapevolezza di riuscire ad attraversare le calme in sei-otto ore, contro le oltre ventiquattro che impiegheranno Ericsson 4 e gli altri componenti del gruppo di testa.
Leg 2, day 10, 10.05 GMT, rankings
1 – Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +1.120 nm
2 – Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) +8 nm
3 – Puma Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +16 nm
4 – Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +25 nm
5 – Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +28 nm
6 – Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) +108 nm
7 – Team Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +151 nm
8 – Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +203 nm
Per seguire la regata sul Race Tracker clicca qui.
Per accedere alla galleria video clicca qui.
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I problemi al daggerboard di Telefonica Blue. Video courtesy Volvo Ocean Race.
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Da bordo di Ericsson 3. Video courtesy Volvo Ocean Race.
D-DAY DAWNS UGLY
[singlepic=883,250,170,,left] [Volvo Ocean Race Press Release] It’s a starburst this morning as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet sailed into the dark shadow of the shape shifting, morphing malcontent that is the Doldrums – it’s D-Day.
Everyone was still reaching north in the trade winds, with Torben Grael and Ericsson 4 holding a narrow lead over Anders Lewander and their sistership, Ericsson 3. But the fleet was starting to shunt as the front runners slowed in the easing wind – it’s the squeeze box effect again.
And by 10.00 Zulu this morning the fleet had scattered – there were a 180 miles of leverage between the two extremes in the east and west – check it out in the Race Viewer. Battling over Muller’s legacy at Centre Forward were the two Ericsson boats. Taking the Pele masterclass at Inside Left position were Puma and Green Dragon, while completing the forward line-up on the Left Wing was Ryan Giggs … I mean Telefonica Blue. Hoping to charge up-field from the Left-back position was Telefonica Black, while at Right-back, Team Russia were definitely attack minded, leaving Delta Lloyd propping up the defence at Sweeper.
We can see the changing wind gradient across the fleet in this morning’s graph of True Wind Speed (TWS in the Data Centre). It’s dropped for everyone, but it’s dropped more for the boats to the north – going under ten knots for Ericsson 4 at 07.00 Zulu. While those behind them were still enjoying wind speeds in the teens.
The squeeze box effect as the fleet closes up
The wind had also started to back (rotate anti-clockwise) and was a little bit north of east for most of the fleet. That’s tightening the True Wind Angle (TWA in the Data Centre) and not really doing any favours for Green Dragon (without their boom) or Telefonica Blue (without their daggerboard). You can also see the squeeze box operating in the graph of Distance to Leader (DTL) as the fleet close up.
Telefonica Blue were first to get the once over from a random cloud around midnight last night, as Bouwe Bekking relates in his email this morning. You can see the impact in the Race Viewer, with the kink to the west in Telefonica Blue’s track.
So much for the here and now (or the then and there), the real interest this morning lies in the future. Green Dragon’s navigator, Ian Moore, gave his analysis of the way it’s going to play out to Amanda Blackley on audio yesterday. While Race Forecaster, Jennifer Lilly, gives her latest thoughts here, confirming the arrival of the leaders on the edge of the Doldrums at 9degS. She’s expecting the lightest wind between 5degS and 3degS, with the transition to a west-southwesterly flow over the equator. The worst of the squall activity is also mostly north of the equator, although it’s relatively benign at the moment, while the best of the wind remains to the east.
And that brings us to the eastward drift of the fleet. This morning, I’ve set up the Predicted Route image to show the isochrones (the horizontal lines) for the most westerly boat, Telefonica Black (Black line) and the most easterly boat – Team Russia (Yellow). And it’s very clear which side the weather forecast favours – west is not best in this ocean. In fact, the weather routing has the Russians doing the Buffalo Gals (go round the outside) to end all Buffalo Gals – catching Puma and Telefonica Blue on the run in to battle for third place.
Team Russia’s crossing point is a long detour
Go Wouter the Routeur…
I’m not going to rain on anyone’s parade by repeating my reservations from yesterday about the difficulty that the weather forecast models have getting traction on this part of the world, and anyway, this forecast is advancing Team Russia so fast on that eastern side that you’ve gotta think there’s no smoke without fire.
And if the unreliability of the Doldrums forecast is in any way reliable, it’s in the fact that the crossing point in the Predicted Route keeps moving further east – compare today’s Predicted Route image to yesterday’s. Team Russia’s new crossing point is at almost 79degE – it’s a long detour, but the weather forecast now thinks that it’ll only give them six hours or so of really light, sub-five knot wind speed.
In comparison, it looks like Ericsson 4 will have to suffer that for a good 24 hours between early tomorrow morning and the morning of the 27th. And it seems that both Torben Grael and Anders Lewander had shifted the track of Ericsson 4 and Ericsson 3 further to the east just before 10.00 Zulu.
But in these conditions, it’s not just about the macro strategy, but about the breaks the guys get sailing the clouds, and how well they keep the boat moving through the calms. Case in point – Anders Lewander and his team on Ericsson 3 had a shocker last time, dropping from second to sixth as they sailed through the Doldrums in Leg 1. And where are they this morning when it all begins again? Second. And so to the rematch, or is it the sequel – I Still Know What You Did Last Summer anyone?
And finally, a good query from Aleksis Nokso-Koivisto which is worth explaining – if you look at the Arrival (ARRIVAL in the Data Centre) times for each boat, and compare it to the fleet order in the Prediction Data table for +5 Day Predicted Distance to Leader, you’ll see that the boats are ordered differently.
This is because the Arrival time is calculated using an average Boat Speed for the leg, so it can begin doing some sort of prediction right from the start gun. This changes when a boat gets within four days of the finish, when we can use the weather forecast reasonably reliably. From that point onwards, the Arrival calculation will use the same methodology as the other Prediction Data in the Table and on the Leaderboard.
So when the fleet are around four to six days out there is a potential discrepancy between these numbers, particularly when they have had a fast leg, and are expecting a slow finish. The discrepancy will disappear as the whole fleet gets within four days of the finish line.
Leg 2, day 10, 10.05 GMT, rankings
1 – Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +1.120 nm
2 – Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) +8 nm
3 – Puma Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +16 nm
4 – Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +25 nm
5 – Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +28 nm
6 – Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) +108 nm
7 – Team Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +151 nm
8 – Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +203 nm
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