In The Doldrums

Saturday, November 22, 2008

The  trade winds were finally fading after a day of higher than expected wind speeds blowing anywhere from the north to the south, the crews were clawing their way to Cochin every which way they could.

Overnight, the fleet had taken up a three-pronged formation, with the centre still led by the Ericsson twins – 4 ahead of 3. Tucked in behind these two were PUMA and Green Dragon, with Delta Lloyd following about 35 miles or so in their wake. Out on the western flank was Telefonica Blue, with her sistership, Telefoncia Black following her trail – both boats forced further west this morning. Meanwhile a 150 miles to the east, Team Russia were holding fast to the strategy declared by their navigator, Wouter Verbraak in an email a couple of days ago.

True Wind Speed has held up above 10 knots for most of the last 24 hours, only finally dropping early this morning. Meanwhile, the True Wind Direction (TWD), after backing (rotating anti-clockwise) through yesterday morning, then shifted back to the right (veering, rotating clockwise). That will have cheered them up on both Green Dragon (without their boom) and Telefonica Blue (without their daggerboard) – both of which are struggling to sail narrow True Wind Angles as a result. Telefonica Blue navigator, Simon Fisher, sounded correspondingly more cheerful about their prospects in yesterday afternoon’s email. I’m not sure how he’s feeling this morning, as the Doldrums got ugly, and they found themselves with a southerly – eek.

But PUMA’s navigator, Andrew Cape, declared the cat fit and well again after her mishaps (at least for the light wind conditions) in this audio - admitting they had no excuse to lose. His assessment for the Doldrums was to get in there and get on with it – sail the boat, battle it out on deck, keep going fast, and … not get hung up on silly weather things.

By tomorrow morning we should have a much better idea of who’s going to be first out of the Doldrums: says navigators. Once they get clear, the forecast currently has them reaching or running northwards in a west or south-westerly True Wind Direction, before it shifts into the north, meaning the final miles are upwind. But there’s light wind to come as they close on the finish – anyone who gets clear and opens a good lead out of the Doldrums will likely hold it, but those boats that escape together are going to be racing all the way to Cochin.