Well, not quite.
Leaving aside the In Port races which add to the points, but not to the ocean mileage, the course starts with Leg 1 from Vigo on Spain’s North West coast, via the islands of Fernando de Noronha to Cape Town in South Africa. On the way the boats will probably have to negotiate some rough weather as they leave Europe in winter, deal with the tricky conditions of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone – doldrums to you – and then work out the best way to get to Fernando de Noronha before finding a way around the South Atlantic high pressure system and then heading to Cape Town and the finish, hopefully not too badly affected by the wind shadow of Table Mountain.
For Leg 2 the main thing on the contestant’s minds will be about getting as far south as they can in the shortest possible time, before heading along the Southern Ocean, propelled by the strong westerlies, swooping over the massive rollers they generate. Two Ice Gates have been added to the course to keep the boats out of the worst of the mass of ice bergs that have calved off Antartica thanks to Global Warming. The first gate is a line 400 nautical miles long at 42 degrees south, extending from 45 degrees east to 51 degrees 45 minutes east. The second is a line 500 miles long at 42 degrees south extending from 69 degrees east to 77 degrees east. Boats have to either pass completely north of each line, or cut each one to pass to the north at some point along their length. The fleet has a scoring gate at the Kergeulen Islands which is Longitude 70 degrees east then, as they close on Australia, they will have to pass north of Eclipse Island at the South west corner of Australia. From Eclipse it’s just a canter to Melbourne.
From Melbourne Leg 3 is a mere hop to Wellington, though it does include the often nasty Bass Strait and New Zealand’s Cook Strait at either end.
Leaving Wellington it’s on with the thermals once again for another battle with the Southern Ocean. This time it’s a long unbroken line of weather systems winging the boats towards Cape Horn. Round the Horn and turn sharp left, through the Straits of La Marie and the Falkland Islands lie ahead as an obstacle before the next port of call, Rio de Janeiro. There are a couple more Ice Gates to put into the Southern Ocean equation. The first is a line which will be at 48 degrees south, between 148 west and 143 west; the second is a line at 48 degrees south, between 130 west and 125 west. As with the previous Ice Gates, the line will have to be cut at some point or a boat will have to sail north of the line completely.
If the crews can tear themselves away from Rio, Leg 5 is a tactically interesting one up the South American coast, once more across the equator, find a way through the ITCZ, fiddle your way past – or through – the Caribbean, avoid disappearing in the Bermuda triangle and then struggle up Chesapeake Bay to the finish at Baltimore in the usual light winds and through the crab pot marker minefield.
Starting from Annapolis on the Chesapeake, Leg 6 takes the boats a mere 400 miles up to New York for a pit stop of a couple of days before the last big one, the Atlantic crossing. Leg 7 will involve some tricky tactics at the beginning as the boats leave America and head north to the Grand Banks. After the Banks the fleet will want to be hooking in to the low pressure weather systems that the jet stream will hopefully be zinging across the Atlantic. Past the scoring gate at the Lizard and then a final sprint up the English Channel to the leg finish at Portsmouth.
The race finish is almost in sight now as the boats take a detour round Britain and Ireland before looping back to Rotterdam in Holland. An impatient stop here, as the teams will be wanting to get on with it for the last 500 miles to the finish line in Gothenburg.
And suddenly it’s all over, 32,700 miles or so of ocean sailing gone, just like that.
Race Schedule 