Volvo Ocean Race, più difficile del previsto

[singlepic=1098,250,170,,left] Volvo Ocean Race – Cochin – Dopo due giorni trascorsi in mare, gli equipaggi protagonisti della Volvo Ocean Race stanno cominciando a capire quanto sarà dura arrivare a Singapore. I venti, infatti, si mantengono evanescenti e le responsabilità gravano prevalentemente sulle spalle dei navigatori e sull’affidabilità delle carte meteo. Le velocità delle barche raccontano di una situazione davvero complessa. Si viaggia tra i sette e gli otto nodi, adattando la propria andatura ai capricci della brezza.

Le previsioni a trentasei ore pronosticano miglioramenti in fatto di intensità del vento, che dovrebbe stendersi e attestarsi sui dieci nodi. Il problema è che la prevista rotazione lo porterà a soffiare da est, ovvero proprio da Sumatra, waypoint di metà tappa per i VOR 70 impegnati in regata. Eventualità che obbligherà gli equipaggi a un’estenuante bolina.

Al comando, seppur con due sole miglia di vantaggio su Il Mostro di Ken Read e Telefonica Blue di Bouwe Bekking, c’è Ericsson 4 di Torben Grael che, nel corso della notte, si è avvantaggiato tenendosi poco più a nord degli avversari e saltando con grande facilità da un refolo all’altro. Scelta meridionale, invece, per Telefonica Black di Fernando Echavarri, attestato in quarta posizione, una manciata di miglia davanti a Green Dragon.

Leg 3, day 2, 10.00 GMT, rankings
1 – Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTF 1479 nm
2 – Puma Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +2 nm
3 – Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +2 nm
4 – Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) 9 nm
5 – Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +13 nm
6 – Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +20 nm
7 – Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) +24 nm
8 – Team Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +75 nm

Per seguire la regata sul Race Tracker clicca qui.

Per visitare la video gallery clicca qui.

[flashvideo filename=video/vor/Fastandfurious_VOR.flv /]
Video courtesy Volvo Ocean Race.

NORMAL SERVICE RESUMED
[singlepic=1099,250,170,,left] [Volvo Ocean Race Press Release] Do not adjust your set, normal service has been resumed – Torben Grael and Ericsson 4 have bubbled back to the front of the fleet overnight, sailing both fast and smart – it’s a lethal combination that’s turned their tiny edge into a killer advantage.

They gained through yesterday afternoon in the drag race, then took the lead with a nice piece of positioning in the approach to the first Sri Lanka clearing waypoint – but Ken Read and Puma, and Bouwe Bekking and Telefonica Blue are not handing over the chocolates just yet…

At 10.00 Zulu, Ericsson 4 were still maintaining a narrow advantage of a couple of miles over the chasing pair. Telefonica Black were just another seven miles further back, with the scorching breath of the Dragon on them a handful of miles behind. Team Russia and Ericsson 3 were battling it out for sixth and seventh, with Delta Lloyd bringing up the rear. Everyone was hard on the wind, beating east in a light north-easterly True Wind Direction (TWD in the Data Centre). They have to stay south until they’ve have cleared to the east of the second Sri Lanka waypoint, at which point the tactical options will reopen…

So, some nice moves from Torben Grael and his navigator, Jules Salter overnight, to work up into the lead. When we left them yesterday morning, they were all straight-lining at the first of the waypoints set to the south of Sri Lanka, to keep them off the pirate coast (yes, I know it’s a serious problem, but they were an entry in the last race, and I just couldn’t resist that one any longer…). The breeze was a 20 knot north-easterly, the course was south-east, and it was a down and out drag race.

Predictably then, the winners of this first section were the speed merchants at this angle of sailing. Ericsson 3 powered past the unfortunate Green Dragon – no real surprises there, as we’d seen something very similar on the reach south from Fernando de Noronha in Leg 1. Similarly, Puma sailed past Telefonica Black, which we had seen before on that same section in Leg 1. But there was something more subtle going on as well through this period – and that was the line up for the approach to the waypoint.

Which way will it blow?
I’m afraid this next bit requires a technical content warning, but if you don’t sail much you should be able to skip the next couple of paragraphs and still stay with the story. So here we go… whenever you’re racing on a reach – as the fleet were yesterday afternoon – and more or less pointing at where you want to go, there’s a couple of things to worry about.

The first is that the wind will shift or get lighter and turn the reach into an upwind leg, forcing you to tack. In which case, anyone positioned to windward that doesn’t have to tack will probably gain. The other possibility is that the wind will shift the other way or get lighter, and turn the reach into a downwind leg, forcing you to gybe. In which case, anyone positioned to leeward that doesn’t have to gybe will probably gain. So… the game is to figure out which way the wind is most likely to go, and then hedge by staying the correct side of the fleet to take advantage of the change in conditions.

Ok, so much for the technical stuff… the central point is that yesterday, mid-afternoon Zulu time, the wind was about to drop and back (shift anti-clockwise) from the north-east to the north-west, turning a straight-line reach into a run. Everyone that saw it coming and got to the south, to leeward, of their closest opponents made a gain.

The right moves
So if you check out today’s graph for Leg Position (Leg_Posn), and look specifically at changes that occurred between 16.00 and 22.00 Zulu (which is when the leading bunch were approaching and rounding the waypoint), you’ll see that Ericsson 4 went past Telefonica Blue to take the lead, Puma and Telefonica Black slipped past Green Dragon, and Team Russia passed Ericsson 3.

Now, check out this image of the approach to the waypoint from the Race Viewer and you’ll see that all the boats that gained were to leeward of those that they passed. A plan that came together nicely aboard Telefonica Black, as Mikel Pasabant reported in yesterday’s email – they thought the wind would go lighter and hedged by sailing to leeward of the fleet. And from aboard Team Russia, skipper Andreas Hanakamp reported that they had made the same calculation, and made the same gain.

Nice work if you can get it – but if you hedge one side of the fleet and the wind goes the other way, you can look very average. Case in point, Delta Lloyd, back in last place, positioned themselves to the north of everyone for the approach and got absolutely hammered, seeing their deficit blow out to almost 80 miles before they got around the waypoint. Ugly.

Back into a drag race
Once around and clear of the obstacle, the breeze appears to have shifted back to the north-east quite quickly, and certainly that’s the wind the fleet would have been expecting on this section as they slowly cleared out from under the malign influence of Sri Lanka. Everyone settled back into the drag race, heading due east for the second waypoint – Ericsson 4 just holding their advantage from a charging Puma, with Telefonica Blue hanging on – and waiting for the conditions to change, as skipper Bouwe Bekking reported this morning.

There are a couple of other points in that email from Bekking that are worth highlighting – firstly Puma’s use of the Code Zero, the sail they unfurled so effectively in that second in-port race in Alicante – clearly, it hasn’t lost its edge. And if you want to track the current that Bekking refers to, you can see it in the Data Centre Graphs, or Environment Data Table, as Current Rate (CUR_RATE), and Current Direction (CUR_DIRN).

Behind this leading trio, Telefonica Black, Green Dragon, Team Russia, and Ericsson 3 don’t seem to have quite the same horsepower available and are slowly seeing the deficit open. But, at 10.00 Zulu they were all getting close to the second waypoint, at which point the options will reopen, and the strategic game resumes.

So what are the choices?
The latest analysis from Race Forecaster, Jennifer Lilly, is that we should have about ten knots today, building to the mid-teens by mid-week, with a direction ranging from north-northeast to east-southeast. Notice the increase in squall activity (the green and yellow splodges in the picture – that’s the technical phrase) as they move east. Essentially, we are looking at a beat all the way to the northern tip of Sumatra, about a thousand miles away. Anyone want to buy a second-hand, but unused turkey? Going cheap, as I think there may be a few people who have ordered one that they aren’t going to need…

The key to this section, as Team Russia’s navigator, Wouter Verbraak explains in his latest email, is picking the moments to tack. There is clearly more wind to the north (as explained in the Leg 3 Preview), but is it worth tacking on a bad wind direction (which is probably anything north of north-east) to get into it earlier?

I’ve set up this Race Viewer image to show the Predicted Routes (the faint wiggly lines running west to east from the yacht’s current position), the Isochrones (the curved vertical lines) and the weather through to 07.00 tomorrow morning. And the suggestion is that everyone should tack and get north as soon as they clear the second Sri Lanka waypoint.

The devil will be in the details – it’s going to come down to good old fashioned wind shifts, taking every possible advantage from each change in direction to work both north to get into the better breeze, and east to get closer to the finish. And when each tack is a 15 minute marathon that involves shifting a couple of tonnes of kit from one side of the boat to the other, you need to make sure you do it at the right time.

Leg 3, day 2, 10.00 GMT, rankings
1 – Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTF 1479 nm
2 – Puma Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +2 nm
3 – Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +2 nm
4 – Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) 9 nm
5 – Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +13 nm
6 – Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +20 nm
7 – Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) +24 nm
8 – Team Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) +75 nm

To follow the race on Race Tracker click here.

To visit the video gellery click here.

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