Rio de Janeiro, stopover port for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-9. Image copyright Rick Tomlinson/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Mark Chisnell
After four legs of new oceans, currents, island chains, weather patterns and stopover ports, we are now well and truly back on the beaten track. The Volvo Ocean Race hasn’t been to Boston before, but the 4,900 miles north up the Atlantic Ocean from Rio de Janeiro is very familiar. Not only is it the traditional race route back to Europe, from South America via North America, but it also passes through a pattern of climate zones that we should all be able to recite by heart by now – south-east trade winds, Doldrums, north-east trades, Azores High and the westerlies...
The race will start from Rio, close to the southern limit of the south-east trade winds. I say close to because we know it can be hard to leave Rio - and not just because of the people, the music, the beaches... High pressure and light air often smother the city, as we saw at the finish of Leg 5.
So our heroes may have to battle through some tricky weather before they emerge into the trade winds and relatively steady conditions. Nor should we forget the south-running Brazil Current, the adverse affects of which the fleet will find it difficult to avoid.
But once they have escaped the immediate confines of Rio, the initial strategic problem is how close to cut the corner of Brazil at Recife. Two things have to be balanced – the further offshore they sail, the stronger and steadier the breeze ought to be, but the more miles they have to sail. There’s an old rule of thumb – stay within 10 miles of the coast, or stand further off than 100 miles.
In theory, there’s no in-between choice - although this rule could go the way of the ‘go south in the south’ rule for the Southern Ocean. But generally, once everyone has picked their corner, there’s a chance for a big gain here. One of the most famous breaks was by Lawrie Smith and his navigator, Vincent Geake, who in 1997-98 took the ‘within 10 miles’ bit very seriously. They crept around Recife in sight of the buildings on the waterfront and pulled into a comfortable lead. I believe that Bouwe Bekking and his team on Movistar also made this move work for them more recently in 2005-06 – something which he will doubtless be bearing in mind this time around.
Once they have that hurdle behind them, attention will turn to the fleet’s fourth and final encounter with the Doldrums. When they raced south down the Atlantic in Leg 1 it was Green Dragon’s bold move to cross the Doldrums to the west that got them the lead. So this transition should be more straightforward, as the fleet will already be lined up to transit the Doldrums at what is usually the narrowest point.
The first boat clear of the Doldrums should reap the usual reward of some steady, fast sailing in the north-east trade winds. It’s at this point that we fall once again under the influence of another name familiar from Leg 1, the Azores High. Its position will determine the strength and whereabouts of the trade winds. The strategy will be to ride the trades north and skirt the western edge of the High - but it can move a long way west and is known in the States as the Bermuda High. If the centre is closer to the latter than the former, then dodging light air may become an issue – let’s hope not, I think we can all agree that the teams deserve a fast leg...
The final section is potentially the most complex. The fleet will be heading north-west away from the influence of the Azores High and into the path of the low pressure systems spinning off the North American continent and heading for Europe. The behaviour of these systems will be critical in the approach to Boston. And given that we’re still not far from the spring equinox – traditionally an unstable time of year – there’s every chance of the fleet meeting some energetic weather.
If that wasn’t enough, the navigators will simultaneously have to negotiate the influence of the Gulf Stream. Crossing this swirl of north-east flowing warm water and eddies while dealing with the low pressure systems will challenge everyone. The combination has the potential to reproduce conditions like those of Leg 4 and the Black Tide. Going upwind in the Gulf Stream can be just as tough – in the last race, it was only here that some of the boats finally had to use the third reef in the mainsail - at least this time around they’ve had plenty of practice with that set-up.
Ericsson 4 sails into Rio de Janeiro. Image copyright Rick Tomlinson/Volvo Ocean Race.
A few other things that are worth thinking about – we’re back with seven boats on the water, and two of them have got fresh crews. Most of the guys walked off the boats at the end of Leg 5 with a lot less muscle than they started with – while the Delta Lloyd and Telefonica Black crews have no excuse for not being at the sharp end of a couple of months of conditioning in the gym. It will be interesting to see if they can make the advantage count.
The other benefit that these two re-starters have is that they have sailed 12,300 miles less, but are still allowed to use the same number of sails. That ought to mean that they have fresher equipment for the rest of the race and give them a little edge – although it may not be immediately apparent.
Telefonica Blue’s skipper, Bouwe Bekking has already said that they have an almost complete new sail inventory for Leg 6 – and they may not be the only one of the five Leg 5 competitors to reload at this point. So any advantage that Telefonica Black and Delta Lloyd have could be negated out of Rio, but at some point they are going to be sailing round the track with a lot less miles on their sails than the others. It isn’t going to make up for the vast points deficit that they’ve accumulated, but it might make for some interesting racing in the later legs if these two can start putting themselves between the boats challenging for places on the podium overall.
The new sails may also overturn some of the things that we’ve learned about performance so far – perhaps some of the crews have learned more and faster about their sails, and the new gear coming out of the bags for the first time will give them improved relative speed. It will also be good to see both the Telefonica boats sail closely alongside the others with their new rudders. By all accounts, they should show a gain.
Up until now, the real sweet spot for the Ericsson boats was reaching at angles aft of the beam – with a true wind angle (TWA) of more than 90 degrees - and the windier it got, the better they seemed to go. But their advantage was much less obvious when they were all sailing upwind or close reaching.
We should get a good mix of conditions in this leg – it will be interesting to see how things compare, and who’s made the most gains.
Volvo Ocean Race
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