Oskar Kihlborg/Volvo Ocean Race
Thursday 20 November 2008
Over the last 48 hours the Southern Ocean has lived up to its reputation. Nonetheless, Wednesday afternoon saw a slight decrease in the overall wind speeds and a tendency for the winds to veer right, as one large area of low pressure moved off to the east and the next moved in from the west.
Looking ahead, two new weather systems, a high to the northwest and a low to the southwest, are rapidly developing. These two systems will drive the tactics/conditions across the fleet for the next few days.
As mentioned in the last weather forecast, high pressure has been building slowly to the south of Madagascar since Tuesday.
So far this system has had little influence over the conditions across the fleet; however, in the next 48 hours it could play an increasingly significant role, especially as the fleet starts to head north.
Meanwhile, the next area of low pressure is rapidly deepening to the south-west of the fleet, with a cold front extending to the north-west.
Depending on the speed of the low, and the tactics in the fleet, the NW'ly flow ahead of the cold front is likely to build into the mid 20s and last through much of the day today and into Friday.
On Friday there is an increasing chance for gusty winds to 40+ knots and possible squalls, as the next cold front catches up to the fleet.
Behind the cold front the winds will remain gusty, shifting to a SW'ly flow. Meanwhile, the high is expected to become reestablished further to the south, moving east-northeast over the weekend.
The position of the high will make for at least 12 hours of light winds along the rhumb line course between the boats current positions and Cochin.
Thus the tactical choices made in the next 24 hours and the resulting positions of the boats will have a big impact over the weather conditions that each team experiences.
The boats, which start heading north ahead of the cold front will see NW'ly winds and possible squalls.
Alternatively, any teams wait until the front pass will have SW'ly winds to help them head north, but they will risk getting caught in the light winds of the high.
Either way, as the teams head northeast over the next 24-48 hours, they will be looking forward to a few days of trade wind sailing.
Jennifer Lilly