Volvo Ocean Race, Dia 2

THE TEN ZULU REPORT, LEG 3, DAY 2

By Mark Chisnell

After a desperate start when they trailed everyone down the coast of India, the rest of the first day has belonged to Ian Walker and his team aboard the Green Dragon. Learning the lessons from the beating they took on the run-in to the finish of Leg 2, they chose the path less travelled, took a long deep breath, and headed for the beach.
And after more transition zones than the coast to coast, they broke free into the blast of north-easterly breeze coming round the southern tip of India. The tactical race ends, and the drag race begins …
But at 10:00 ZULU, it was Bouwe Bekking and Telefonica Blue that held the lead from Green Dragon, as the fleet were blast reaching across the gap between India and Sri Lanka in 20 knots and more of north-easterly True Wind Direction (TWD in the Data Centre). Overall leader, Ericsson 4, was still very much in touch, in third place just seven miles behind the leader, then came PUMA, Telefonica Black, Ericsson 3, Team Russia and Delta Lloyd.
We left the fleet with the sea breeze starting to fade, as the sun eased towards the Indian Ocean. The north-westerly wind lost the driving force generated by the sun’s heat, and the fleet was forced to sail a little closer to the wind to maintain momentum, with a narrower True Wind Angle (TWA in the Data Centre). As they were on starboard gybe, that meant turning the boat away from the south, where they wanted to go, and more to the west, further offshore.
Faced with this, and – let’s be fair – in last place and struggling to hang onto the fleet at the time, the strategic team aboard Green Dragon of skipper, Ian Walker, and (fresh off the subs bench) navigator Steve Hayles, elected to gybe and head back towards the beach. In doing so, they condemned themselves to some anxious, but ultimately profitable hours.
In contrast, the rest of the pack have played it safe, Team Russia and Telefonica Black took a slightly more inshore line than the others, but not by much – for the most part, they stuck together as a group – all for one, and one for all.
A big call to separate from the fleet on your first night out as navigator
None of that tactical stuff for Green Dragon, who have always been happy cast in the role of (calculated) risk taker (west at the Doldrums on Leg 1, first to go offshore from the Cape Peninsula in Leg 2…), and the change of navigator seems to have made no difference. Still, it’s a big call to separate from the fleet on your first night out as navigator in a new boat, however much the skipper backs the option.
Initially, the Dragon found some hope in a south-westerly breeze, allowing them to reach straight down the coast, while those that had elected to stay offshore, were forced to sail further and further from where they wanted to go. If you check on the Race Viewer, you can see how the trail of the Dragon diverges and goes inshore, hugging the coast, while everyone else slowly creeps west. But then Walker and his boys ran out of wind, and at the 16:00 ZULU position report (21:30 local), they were still dead last, and with their deficit building.
After a long, dark, tea-time of the soul, in which they had plenty of opportunity to ponder the wisdom of the idea of separating from the fleet, helped arrived in the shape of the land breeze (a Katabatic or drainage wind) that they must have been expecting. With the rest of the fleet chasing the dying sea breeze further offshore, the Dragon got the new wind first, and all of a sudden, this left felt right.
Now the others had plenty to worry about, as Guy Salter reported from Ericsson 4. The sea breeze had gasped its last, the windless zone moving offshore and over them, and it was their turn to do some time. Green Dragon punched through into the lead – on the fast track inshore, and chalking up another one to those willing to back their judgment. But I suspect there was a big sigh of relief, nevertheless, for Walker and Hayles – you can read Ian Walker’s take on it all in his first email off the boat.
The land breeze eventually flowed offshore and got everyone moving – and once the fleet saw the Position Reports showing how well Green Dragon was going inshore they all started to close down the gap. The fleet came together off the tip of India around Midnight ZULU – which was dawn locally, just in time for the land breeze to die, and the brakes to come back on. The fleet closed right back up, and by the 01:00 ZULU Position Report, there were just four miles between Green Dragon at the front, and Delta Lloyd at the back – as Team Russia’s skipper, Andreas Hanakamp, reflected.
The conditions will create plenty of squeeze box action
But those four miles were going to turn out to be very important. I mentioned in the Leg 3 Preview that whoever could get south fastest was going to get a big jump once the fleet escaped into the north-easterly monsoon wind that flows around the bottom of India – and it was about to happen.
As the sun rose higher and the fleet crept south, the breeze slowly strengthened – I suspect the heating was also helping to mix the gradient wind down to the surface of the sea. As the wind was funneling through the gap between India and Sri Lanka, it reached the most southerly and easterly boats first. So it was Telefonica Blue and Green Dragon that took off like scalded cats around 06:00 ZULU (just before midday local time), headed for the waypoint that keeps them off the southern tip of Sri Lanka.
Bouwe Bekking and his team aboard Telefonica Blue can count it a job well done in those last six hours through to the take-off. They stuck with the fleet, and have not taken any chances, but sailed themselves through into the lead in the light air. It looks like they have worked hard to get to the eastern side of the fleet to pick up the new breeze first. But as they did it while also getting south, I suspect that this is just plain ol’ boat speed that we’re seeing - hopefully Bouwe will report in today and give us his take on it.
All of this is tracked in today’s graph – of Distance to Leader (DTL) and Leg Position (Leg_Posn) – the explosion in the DTL is particularly noticeable once the leaders escape into the new breeze.
So much for yesterday, what’s going to happen next? The Race Viewer now has BOTH (oh joy…) the Predicted Routes and the weather incorporated into it, so I’ve set up this Race Viewer image for the situation at 07:00 ZULU tomorrow morning. The north-easterly breeze funneling through the gap between India and Sri Lanka is shown, as is the next hazard – the windless zone downwind of Sri Lanka, followed by another blast of north-easterly accelerating around the eastern edge of the island.
Those conditions will create plenty of squeeze box action for the fleet, compressing and decompressing the DTL as they sail in and out of the breeze. And it could provide opportunities which otherwise might not exist – after all, they’re reaching and there would normally be few passing lanes, except for those with a boat speed advantage. And that’s the reason why Ericsson 4 and Ericsson 3 are predicted to pull ahead in a day’s time. We’re now using performance data collected directly from the boats to drive these predictions, and that reckons that the two Ericsson boats are fastest in the conditions expected in the next 24 hours.
So… settle down with a coffee and a biscuit (it’s a Sunday, after all) and watch the drag race to see if that’s how it plays out. There are few strategic options until they’ve cleared the second waypoint at the south of Sri Lanka. After that, it opens right up, but given the instability of the weather forecasts in this area, I’m not going to start worrying about that until we get a lot closer…
The TEN ZULU REPORT (so called because it follows the 10:00 GMT fleet position report and Zulu is the meteorologist's name for GMT).