Telefonica Blue’s chances of an overall race win slipped a tiny bit further away from them last night, as a forestay fitting failed on the mast. A quick response by watch captain, Jonathan Swain saved them from worse, by turning the boat away from the wind to take the load off the rig. The failure follows the grounding at the start, then the mainsail damage that they suffered and repaired yesterday – these guys are just not getting any luck.
The failure on Telefonica Blue is similar to that suffered by Green Dragon in Leg 4. The Dragon sailed on to Qingdao without a forestay, but the damage means a reduced sail area when reaching, and sailing upwind in light and medium winds. And while that might not (normally) be a problem in the Southern Ocean, it will eventually cost Telefonica Blue some miles – these guys are now loaded for duck on a bear hunt.
Barring gear failure on one of the other boats, Bouwe Bekking and his team are unlikely to pick up better than a fifth at either the Cape Horn scoring gate, or the finish. And that loss of points may put the overall prize out of reach – but yacht racing’s capacity for springing surprises is unlimited. Remember that Telefonica Blue started the leg 19 hours behind and were leading when this happened. So let’s not count anyone out just yet.
At 10:00 ZULU this morning, Telefonica Blue was still doing 12 knots eastwards and holding onto the lead from PUMA. There’s been no let up in the massive leverage that still divides the fleet, it doubled in the last 24 hours, with a whopping 450 miles between Ericsson 3 to the north and Telefonica Blue to the south. These guys are further apart than Karl Marx and Milton Friedman - with PUMA, Ericsson 3 and Green Dragon playing John Maynard Keynes. It’s interesting, but probably meaningless, that these three regular starters are in the middle, with the two late-starters on the wings.
All five boats were sailing east-northeast, with wind speeds (TWS in the Data Centre) ranging from the high teens for Telefonica Blue, to the high 20s for Ericsson 3 in the north. There was a lot less variation in the direction, with everyone now getting a south-east to east-southeasterly breeze.
When we left them, the fleet was close to, or east of, the north-south axis of the high pressure system that has been dominating proceedings. The two boats that were furthest east, PUMA and Ericsson 3, had already switched from going south-east to north-east, (having tacked to starboard). Green Dragon and Ericsson 4 followed them right after the TEN ZULU was posted. That left Telefonica Blue going south-east, and she only fell into line after they had sorted out their forestay problems at about 22:30 ZULU last night.
Part 1 of Magdahl’s masterplan was complete, and so we move on to Part 2 – the low pressure system. I think the action has just started to unfold in the last three hours. If you check out today’s graph of Boat Speed (BS) and True Wind Direction (TWD), you will see that Ericsson 3 had been maintaining a much higher speed than the others until 07:00 ZULU, when it plunged. At the same time, the wind direction went from the south to the south-east. I think that means that she is about to pass just beneath the centre of the low pressure. Remember that the wind flows clockwise around a low in the Southern Hemisphere, and Ericsson 3 has moved from the southerly at 9 o’clock, to the south-easterly at 7.30.
Le Coeur was wondering in yesterday’s Comments if Ericsson 3 would go north of the low pressure. I don’t think Magdahl is too bothered whether he goes north or south, so long as he goes close to the centre and transits into the strong northerly breeze on the other side as quickly as possible.
It’s this transition that is crucial to the success or failure of Magdahl’s plan – as they are closest to the low pressure, they will be most affected by any small changes in its track. As Race Forecaster, Jennifer Lilly, said in her latest analysis, “Worse case scenario a team would have both a period of strong upwind sailing [at six o’clock relative to the centre] and then a period of light and variable short tacking [in the centre of the low]. Best case scenario, the low will track southwest and the fleet will be able to tap into some of the favourable northerly winds on the eastern periphery [three o’clock relative to the centre] of the low.
If we take a look at the Predicted Route image for today, we can see that it still thinks the low pressure will provide the payback for all those extra miles Ericsson 3 sailed to get up there. It is routing everyone north to get them into the breeze from the low. And the further north you are, the wider and faster the wind angle as you ride back south-east.
The Predicted Data is not showing the bonanza of gains (+200 miles) for Ericsson 3 that it was yesterday, but it still thinks that they will be leading by around 50 miles from PUMA, in both +3 and +5 days. But those 50 miles could easily be erased by a bad transit of the low pressure system – so the crucial period is likely to be the next 24 hours. If Ericsson 3 can get into the position shown on that Predicted Route by this time tomorrow morning, the rest of Magdahl’s move should play out smoothly.
And let’s not forget, the low pressure could also move in such a way that it deals harshly with the boats to the south. If the forecast is correct they will hit the strongest breeze on the cold front, and could have an even tougher transition into the northerly breeze behind. Aboard Green Dragon, navigator, Wouter Verbraak tells us that they are preparing for war and he, for one, thinks the best place to transit the low pressure is through the centre. He's prepared to accept some tricky light air to dodge the worst of the cold front (and as he's got that plan from the teachings of a master, Francis Joyon, I'm not about to step up and disagree with him). The Green Dragon is aiming for the centre as it drops south, but it’s a moving target.