The Green Dragon breathed fire on the shackles of history overnight – she’s headed east for a date with another northern low pressure system. Ericsson 3 got boosted into a 300 mile lead by ignoring the rules (go south in the Southern Ocean) and turning north at the scoring gate off New Zealand. Are we now going to see the rule book burned to ash by Green Dragon?
Their move doesn’t involve anything as dramatic as Ericsson 3’s tack at the scoring gate, but it could be just as effective, history quickly repeating - new rules written as we watch. There are dangers though, and they are not all tactical – the Dragon must negotiate an ugly low pressure system to close down Ericsson 3.
The Nordics are still charging this morning, putting good miles back onto their lead, but there’s a hole in the breeze the size of New Zealand between them and Cape Horn. Not surprisingly, they’re looking over their shoulders and feeling the heat - if it’s not an old Viking truth, it should be: if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
At 10:00 ZULU this morning, the four boats that have cleared the second ice gate were all headed east, or east-southeast, and formed up in a rough line from Green Dragon in the north-west, through Ericsson 4 and PUMA, to Ericsson 3, 400 miles away to the south-east. They all had a decent, mid-teens, wind speed (TWS) from the south or south-west (TWD). Telefonica Blue was the exception, still locked in the northerly breeze from the high pressure, and still headed for the second ice gate to her east.
The opportunity to make a big strategic play started to develop yesterday, as the Predicted Route on the Race Viewer began to route the fleet east away from the ice gate, rather than the more obvious choice, south-east towards Cape Horn. When we left them yesterday morning, Ericsson 4 and PUMA appeared to be ignoring the eastern option, and were headed south-east in the wake of the leader, Ericsson 3.
But there were the first signs of Green Dragon changing her trajectory towards the ice gate. All through yesterday morning and into the afternoon it slowly became clearer that they were going to keep going east walking the line along the gate, rather than do a ‘touch and go’ at the western end, and immediately head south-east with the others. And please note that there was a jump in the Distance to Leader (DTL) for Green Dragon between 19:00 and 22:00 ZULU last night, due to a burp in the calculation (that’s the technical phrase).
The Dragon finally hit the gate at 03:55 ZULU this morning, 160 miles east of the western end - and kept going east. Skipper, Ian Walker and navigator, Wouter Verbraak share the strategic planning on Green Dragon, and they’ve already made one good move, going east as they cleared Japan. A lack of boat speed when reaching meant that it just kept them in touch with the fleet, rather than pushed them into the sort of spectacular three digit lead that Ericsson 3 gained. And I think they’ll be looking for this to do the same trick for them.
The weather forecasts have continued to confirm the viability of the eastern option over the last 24 hours, as Race Forecaster, Jennifer Lilly, discusses in her latest analysis. Unsurprisingly, the leading trio has had second thoughts. Ericsson 3, Ericsson 4 and PUMA have slowly changed their course to a more easterly trajectory, to hold themselves north for longer, and pick up the low pressure quicker.
In doing so, they have also widened their wind angle (TWA) and got the spinnakers back up, as they crossed through the area of high pressure that was sitting over the middle of the ice gate. This has produced some welcome blue skies and an opportunity to dry out - but doesn’t seem to have badly slowed anyone, although speeds are down somewhat from yesterday.
PUMA made the most significant single change of course at about 18:00 ZULU last night, and just prior to that her skipper, Ken Read, told Guy Swindells in this audio interview that Green Dragon was the boat to watch, as they were best positioned to take advantage of the low pressure coming from the north.
Ken Read also reckoned that the weather was as, “weird and tricky as any time we’ve seen it in the leg, or in the race for that matter.” If you’ve got time to listen to the whole six minutes, there’s some good stuff in the second half about the way he and his navigator, Andrew Cape, try to balance the short-term weather forecasts, and the long-term historical data. And that, once again, is the crux of the situation. The scenario is eerily similar to that at the scoring gate, where the weather forecasts said that the northern option was the quickest, but all the history said go south. It’s even more weird that the key feature is another low pressure system, situated to the north of the fleet, and it’s Friday 13th ...
If the Green Dragon pull this one off, it would be right up there in the pantheon of great sporting doubles. Ken Read talks about how it could all play out in this email, and to help with the description, I’ve set up the first of today’s Predicted Route images for the boat positions and weather 24 hours ahead. The two key features are the low pressure system – ‘L’ - spinning up to the north of the eastern end of the ice gate, and the high pressure - ‘H’ - to the south-east of Ericsson 3. It’s the high pressure that’s blocking the path to Cape Horn, and the low pressure that will clear the route, and take them south.
Now wind forward another couple of days, to this Predicted Route image with the weather and boat positions in three days time. The low pressure has tracked south-east, sweeping all before it on the way to Cape Horn – and pushing the top four within 70 miles of each other. All good for the Dragon, PUMA and Ericsson 4 you might think, but Ian Walker raises an important issue in his latest email.
The new low pressure is deeper and more powerful than the one that Ericsson 3 speared through the heart of a week ago. If Green Dragon is to get into the northerly and westerly breeze on the other side of this one, they’ve got to do the same thing – go upwind in strong breeze, and then go through or around it. There’s some pretty ugly weather between the Dragon and glory – and this is setting up to be a serious test of everything that ocean racing entails; strategy, seamanship, speed.