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Working through the doldrums Three Gilles Ollier-designed cats continue to lead the fleet, but adopt slightly different routes through the ITZC January 10, 2001 Club Med retains her lead, sailing with confidence and without veering all over the Atlantic like her sister catamaran Innovation Explorer. Since pulling away from the African coast on December 3, Loick Peyron's boat sailed west before gybing to the south and then gybed back to the west, leaving punters wondering if he knew what he was doing. Does he? Of course! Don't ever forget that Loick, skipper of the very successful Open 60 tri Fujicolor, is nothing less than a hero in his native France. But time will tell whether his western route through the doldrums will pay dividends. At an average of more than 21 knots he was sailing up to eight knots faster than either Club Med or her shadow, Team Adventure - just 90 miles behind the leader, but he still lagged more than 200 miles behind as of earlier today. Club Med and Team Adventure, meanwhile, were making steady progress through the doldrums averaging eight knots and are expected to reach the first puffs of south-east trade winds later today, Greenwich Mean Time. The South Atlantic Next comes the big off-the-wind slide down towards the Southern Ocean, and at the moment the St Helena high is a dominant feature in the South Atlantic Ocean, with a low pressure cell predicted to develop off the coast of Uruguay on January 11, moving east-southeast towards the Southern Ocean. From the moment the cats exit the doldrums and enter the south-east trades - essentially winds circulating between the northern edge of the St Helena High and the southern limit of the tropical low pressure belt known as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone - these boats will enjoy smooth reaching until latitude 35 degrees south. At this point, navigators and routers will be working hard to try and 'cut the corner' of the high pressure cell without sailing into its windless centre. With a bit of luck, good timing and good trimming, a boat might catch the northern extremity of a frontal system, connected to a low developing off the Uruguay coast and ride the north-west winds preceding that front - or the west-southwest winds following - all the way to the roaring 40s, south of Cape Town. Alternatively, that same low could stall and drop a boat into a windless ridge of high pressure. This was exactly the case with the Vendee Globe fleet in late November and early December, and front-runner Yves Parlier very nearly lost his lead when those behind saw the Gallic intrepid fall flat on his face! Remember, the cats in The Race require much less wind to perform miracles and the speed with which they travel lets them pick and choose much more freely than an Open 60 monohull. Stay tuned! © weather-wise.com 2001 Picture courtesy of Virtual Spectator. This fleet position image shows the constant track of Club Med (in blue) and the constantly changing course of Innovation Explorer (in green). Playstation is in red and Team Adventure in orange. When this fleet position was recorded, Innovation Explorer - way off to the west - was sailing faster than her competitors in the doldrums, but it is too early to tell if this move will pay dividends. Atlantic animated cloud patterns Image courtesy Intellicast. This animated image shows cloud above the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone expanding. Does this expansion of cloud indicate increased wind flow through the doldrums region?
Five day wind forecast for the
Atlantic This US aviation model (AVN) shows winds at the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone to increase, and nearly bridge the doldrums during the next four days. Such a scenario would aid those lagging behind, like Playstation, and bring The Race much closer together.
Read all about it at www.therace.org! Weather report as of January 10 from race headquarters: "The challengers have reached the light, fickle winds of the Doldrums. They will not be through them until January 10th, between 6 am and 4 pm GMT.
'This morning, the leading challengers have almost no wind', explains Gilles
Chiorri of Météo Consult“,
“they are going through a bad patch, a little flurry and then nothing. The
weather models are not accurate enough to be able to pinpoint the breezes, the
only information that helps the navigators comes from the hourly updated
satellite pictures”.
This region of light and fickle wind is living up to its reputation. What we are seeing is classic Doldrums weather. The way out of the Doldrums lies, as forecast, on the equator. At latitude 0, the south easterly trade winds should return, albeit modestly at first. Further north, PlayStation is making good progress in the north east trades and is unlikely to be slowed by the Doldrums before the morning of January 10th. The south easterly trade winds are also modest at present (10 knots gusting to 15) along the longitude of Club Med and Team Adventure, direction between 130 and 140°." |