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Southern Ocean takes its first scalp Within hours of entering the roaring 40s, the three leading cats were down to two. How long now before the next victim falls prey to the wild weather of the deep south? January 21, 2001 Team Adventure, which had been shadowing Club Med since the North Alantic, has retired from The Race, for the moment, and is heading for Cape Town to repair major damage to her main beam, and minor damage to two crew. It appeared she plunged off two or three waves before really burying her bows and coming to a complete halt. The impact delaminated a portion of her main beam, pulling the carbon skin away from the Nomex honeycomb core. As well, the sudden drop in speed from more than 20 knots to zero hurtled two crew forward injuring them both. The spectacular accident happened in not-so spectacular conditions - 35-45 knots of westerly winds and a 3m swell. Just the day before, as she exited the South Atlantic High and accelerated into the Southern Ocean, Team Adventure router Ken Campbell was predicting the potential for a 24 hour distance record. Certainly Yves Parlier and Dominic Wavre did just that in their Open 60 monohulls during the Vendee Globe as they exited the South Atlantic High. It seems calm seas and a rising wind might be behind that phenomenon. However, there are other factors to consider down here: The south-west flowing Agulhas Current can collide with a prevailing westerly swell to create backless waves, much like the East Australian Current affects waters around Bass Strait. And if that doesn't get you, perhaps an iceberg will. Club Med reported one in the same vicinity, and Vendee Globe competitors also did in the same location. Indeed, northern ice limits creep above 45 degrees in this corner of the ocean, thanks to the northwards flowing Benguela Current. Whatever the case, these next-generation yachts are proving themselves fragile and until composite science figures out a way to reduce delamination, punters will continue to wonder just how long the new maxi cats will last in the relentless westerly winds. Perhaps we should not write-off the two smaller catamarans, Warta Polpharma (1836 miles behind the leader) and Team Legato (2794 miles behind). Both cats were delayed early in the race, and really haven't had a chance to prove themselves against the new Gilles Ollier designs ... yet! © weather-wise.com 2001 Fleet positions Within hours of escaping the centre of the South Atlantic High, Club Med and Team Adventure accelerate to the south-east, leaving Innovation Explorer floundering. Fleet positions Team Adventure (orange line) heads towards Cape Town after damaging its main beam and injuring two crew when it leapt off a wave and crashed into the trough. Club Med (blue line) has also jibed to head north, but only to avoid sailing too far south into the centre of a developing low. Innovation Explorer is not plotted on this chart. Picture courtesy of Virtual Spectator.
Five day pressure forecast for the
Southern Ocean Image courtesy of COLA. What are we looking at here? Africa is at the top, South America to the west, the Australian Bight to the east, Antarctica in the centre. Watch carefully the sequence, with its first and last images showing for twice as long as the middle frames. In the second frame, January 21, you can see a deepening low directly south of Madagascar. Club Med is riding winds immediately behind the frontal cloud created by this low. Watch how this same low deepens (turn dark purple on the chart) over the next couple of days and travels south-east. Four days out and the COLA models suggests this low will have maxed south of the Kerguelen Islands, with terrific north-west winds preceding the front. In the old days, yachts would have little option but to ride out weather systems down south, but nowadays these maxi cats can often choose to accelerate through a system and ride its frontal weather 'wave'. Southern Ocean systems typically travel at 25-35 knots, and these next-generation boats are capable of sailing at those speeds for extended hours - provided they don't delaminate under the strain! Accurate forecast or not, it would pay Club Med to hold back slightly and ride the westerly winds following this frontal system (they may have no choice). After all, the model shows a westerly stream to develop behind this front which could propel Club Med and Innovation Explorer well to the east over coming days. Speaking of Innovation Explorer. They are presently riding south-east along the face of another frontal system some 500 miles west of Club Med. According to the COLA model, this second low is forecast to merge with Club Med's system, to form an oval-shaped blob of low pressure with westerly winds to its north. Expect plenty of squall clouds, and winds in the 50 knot range. Even if these cats can stay north of the wildest winds, they will have a hard time keeping a lid on the action! By the way, note all the cyclonic activity in the equatorial Indian Ocean. These storms are capable of sliding into the deep south and wreaking havoc on race contestants with winds opposing prevailing swell. But for the moment they aren't forecast to cause a problem. 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! |
