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Through hoops with apparent ease Club Med rounds Cape Horn and sailing close to 600 miles in one day nearly avoids the South Atlantic High February 14, 2001 When Club Med's weather router Roger Badham says jump, Grant Dalton, Franck Proffit, Mike Quilter and crew say 'how high'. As if smashing the previous 24 hour distance record wasn't enough, the big blue maxicat rounded Cape Horn and swiftly sailed away to the north-east riding a powerful westerly flow. The right winds just never stopped. Club Med followed them to the north of a low pressure cell, deepening to the south-east of the Horn and aimed for a favourable slot, at the far eastern edge of a high pressure cell growing off the coast of Uruguay. Badham apparently said 'go fast' with the aim of covering 1000 miles in 40 hours in order to beat the eastward migration of that high and round its starboard flank without getting caught in its windless centre. Dalton and Proffitt said 'sure' and 24 hours later recorded a whopping 591 miles. The big ask, it seems, was just too easy ... nearly. The high has caught them and they are parked - smack dab in the middle of this windless balloon, but don't expect them to languish and wait for Innovation Explorer to come up from behind. Wind prediction models show north-east winds developing underneath a trough line extending south-east from Brazil. This sub-tropical trough is usually there, but it doesn't always affect surface winds. The models suggest a low emerging east of the Falklands. Its frontal cloud will combine with the trough to the north to create a window of northerly winds before the low pisses off to the east. We will be keen to see what happens next! Difficult corner Let's not forget that this corner of the ocean is notorious for snaring leading yachts in global races. Vendee Globe winner Michael Desjoyeux saw a 600 mile lead erode to nothing after he became stuck in the South Atlantic Quagmire. Grant Dalton recalls all too well how his Whitbread 60 Merit lost valuable position to skippers from well behind when a bubble of high pressure just west of the Falklands stopped him dead just after rounding the horn in 1997. For sure the crew of innovation Explorer had hoped for something similar as they saw their rival glide into the lee of Cape Horn - 800 miles ahead. But it seems Neptune only has eyes for Club Med. Loick Peyron, Skip Novak and Roger Nilson aboard Innovation Explorer were treated to a legendary Cape Horn cocktail: 45-50 knot winds, 60 knot gusts, and 'difficult' cross seas (re: shithouse conditions). As Novak's wife and journalist Elena Caputo told race headquarters, any attempt at a distance record was out of the question. Priorities at the time included weighting the aft end of the trampoline with extra sails to bring the bows up and other 'near-survival' preparations. The crew even considered the prospect of lying a-hull to the westerly onslaught if quartering to the waves while sailing downwind proved too scary. As it turned out, the passage was hard - seven gybes in 45 knot winds - but beautiful. Real legend stuff and Elena describes it for race headquarters below. An ocean behind The distances between competitors just keeps growing. As of the February 13 position report, Innovation Explorer was 1022 miles behind, Team Adventure 5875 miles behind, Warta Polpharma 6533 miles and Team Legato 7394 miles behind. Club Med has less than 5800 miles to the finish at Marseilles. The sad case in The Race is Team Adventure which has is only just approaching Cook Strait - an entire ocean behind her two sister-ships. It seem incredible that Team Adventure was within a bee's dick of Club Med as they roared into the Southern Ocean, but delamination of her front beam after a collision with a big, bad wave forced her north to Cape Town for repairs. With her Cape Town layover went the magic. Even if you take into account the hours spent traveling north to repair the beam, the time in port, and the time spent getting south again, it doesn't add up to an ocean of difference. What happened? Club Med, it seems, caught a perfect weather window east of Africa and rode it all the way to the Tasman Sea. Dalton and navigator Mike Quilter negotiated the very edge of a bubble of high pressure beautifully on their approach to Cook Strait and as they sailed past Wellington and back into the Southern Ocean, hitched a ride on yet another steady westerly stream. Innovation Explorer, only 200 miles behind after a record 629 miles in 24 hours of sailing became snared in the same high avoided by Club Med. They could only wallow in disbelief and watch their distance gained erode as the high's centre migrated over Cook Strait and left them idling at single-digit speeds. Team Adventure, and Warta Popharma, meanwhile, struggled with another typical Southern Ocean pattern: Lows to the north, ridges of high pressure to the south. Team Adventure - showing promising 24 hour runs soon after re-entering the Southern Ocean - tucked in behind a frontal systems and rode it most of the way across to Australia before it stalled. But throughout the crossing, the ride was not nearly as smooth as that enjoyed by Club Med, and boat speed suffered as a result. Big insult Team Adventure's biggest insult came as they sailed under Australia. Talented navigator Jean Yves Bernot chose a route to the north of an emerging low - a sensible thing to do, considering the potential for confused seas and opposing winds on the southern side - but found themselves in a seriously elongated band of windless low pressure as that emerging low stalled. A bubble of high pressure in the southern Tasman Sea has only compounded Team Adventure's woes, and she remains trapped in light airs, still waiting to get to Wellington where they will stop to repair that delaminated front beam - again! Moral is low, the thirst for competition is gone - although they will return to Europe as part of The Race. Record run? But back to the front-runners. We said at the start that a 'round the world record would be hard to beat - given that boats started on a certain date, rather than when a right weather window opened. But based on Club Med's swift descent through the Southern Ocean and its incredible distance achieved east of Cape Horn, we might well see a new Jules Verne record. Stay tuned! © Jamie Brown/weather-wise.com 2001 Synoptic situation and fleet
positions Club Med (blue line) finds the centre of high pressure east of Uruguay after swift reaching in the wake of a deep low, now well to its south-east. They had aimed to sail around this high to its east, but are now relying on predicted north-east winds associated with an emerging trough line. In fact, the trough is shown here as a series of bumps in the isobars separating two high pressure zones in the South Atlantic. Models say this trough will separate from a low south west of Cape Town and re-connect with a low in the vicinity of South Georgia. Synoptic situation and fleet
positions Club Med rounds the horn on February 11 and rides westerlies generated by a deepening low near the South Shetland Islands. Half a world away, Team Adventure (orange line) remains caught in high pressure on their approach to New Zealand - and there is no way around it. Picture courtesy of Virtual Spectator. Five day wind and synoptic
forecast Image courtesy of NOAA. While there is plenty of wind to the east of that high pressure zone off the Uruguay coast, it is too far to travel for the extra speed promised. Club Med has opted to sail north directly into high pressure, about 40 degrees south. Here they hope to pick up northerly winds funneling along a trough line predicted to emerge within the next day. It seems that this chart shows a low emerging east of the Falklands, with its frontal cloud teasing the monsoonal trough further north to come south and develop further. If Club Med can take advantage of this situation and escape this high without it migrating north, they will have easterly trade winds and plain sailing all the way to the doldrums. South Atlantic, and South Indian
oceans This image is confusing because the first four frames are a day apart and the last two frames are 54 and 36 hours apart. So much for clarity! Anyway, in the first frame Club Med is approaching Cape Horn after breaking the 24 hour record. A low is developing in southern Argentina just east of the dividing range and will quickly migrate to the south-east. Club Med rides the westerly winds flowing over the top of this low, passing the Horn on February 11 and riding these winds to the north-east at a fast pace before landing in the high pressure zone east of Uruguay - shown in infra red as a dark clear patch. In the last frame a trough extends from southern Brazil/ Uruguay to the low south-west of Cape Town. Winds along that trough line are generally north on its eastern flank and south-west on its western flank. Models say the trough will part company with the low's frontal cloud and rejoin with a new low forming in the vicinity of South Georgia. If that happens, Club Med might be able to take advantage of new northerly winds and climb out of the windless zone in which it presently sits. Images courtesy of Intellicast February 13, From Elena Caputo aboard innovation Explorer We could not have asked for anything better! The passage of the Horn was like a perfect dream come true. With 50 knots of wind gusting 60 and breaking waves making the surface of the water more white than blue, Explorer surfed passed Cape Horn at incredible speed, touching at times 39 knots on the instruments. The feeling of joy and relief was visible in the eyes and the smiles of all the crew. What a disappointment it would have been to pass the mythical rock with 15 knots of wind in flat waters after having sailed 43 days to get here!The morning started out in the usual rough manner and the sea began getting steep between one squall and the other. Wind gusted to 60 knots and hail came pouring down on us as we gybed twice during what seemed a very long approach to the Horn. We put the staysail up in the place of the Solent and eventually had 3 reefs in the mainsail. The first signs of exhaustion started showing on the crew after this long sail. Jean Phi was sound asleep in his one-piece suite in the galley, Loic Le Mignon had literally just got into his sleeping bag, and I was trying to pull my foul weather gear off without ripping out too much hair, when Skip suddenly called into the hull: “everybody on deck right now!”. We thought we were in for some bad blow and needed to reduce sail further but instead came out to have a glorious view of the rugged land of Tierra del Fuego. A few started taking pictures and film and Skip -as the expert of the area- had to explain they were looking at Isla Hermite, the wrong rock. The Horn was still 18 miles off and the cold front had caught up with us so the sky suddenly opened up to a splendid blue with a few perfect white clouds. Clear visibility allowed us to get a good glimpse of this dreaded and respected land. The honor of the helm went to Yves Loday as Explorer sailed past the Horn at incredible speed. Mouette's eyes shined and he said he felt like a child discovering water for the first time. Even Xavier emerged from his bunk where he has been lying sick for the past 48 hours and went running across the net to leeward to get a closer look. Loick stood contemplating the majestic rock that has claimed so many lives and created so many legends. Julien never pissed to windward but admitted he suddenly felt the relief of having finished this leg of The Race and being out of the Southern Ocean back into the Atlantic on the way home. Yes, for everybody, it is time to start counting the days to the finish line and start thinking again of catching up with Club Med. More great reading: Catch up on all the past action in our race archive. Here it from the horse's mouth at race headquarters. Follow the action between the world's toughest solo skippers in the Vendee Globe. Re-live the Sydney to Hobart yacht race! Break ice in the Ross Sea! |