Low blows and high anxiety

Wednesday, 10 June 2009 10:00 GMT

THE TEN ZULU REPORT, LEG 8, DAY 5

By Mark Chisnell

A low pressure system has been prowling the North Sea, smiting blows against all that dare come too close. The leaders tracked along the sands of the Frisian Islands and then the coast of Denmark to try and solve the riddle - how to dodge the low and get to the Baltic? This morning, it was still far from clear that they had found the answer.

At 10:00 ZULU, Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon were on the beaches of Denmark duelling for the lead in a fading south-westerly breeze. Offshore, Telefonica Blue, Telefonica Black, Delta Lloyd and Ericsson 3 looked to have won their battle with the low pressure and wriggled clear of the light air in the centre. They had a building west or north-westerly wind, and were starting to move again after several painfully slow hours. And all the while, PUMA was steaming in from the west, back up to fifth, and closing everyone down at 15 knots ...

We left the fleet yesterday morning, blasting north from Rotterdam in a 25 knot south-westerly breeze. Remembering that the wind flows anti-clockwise around a low pressure in the northern hemisphere, this south-westerly breeze was on the south-eastern corner of the same, notorious, low pressure system that has been torturing the fleet for the last day and a half.

This low was predicted to move (unpredictably) north-east up the North Sea. Ericsson 3 had already suffered the consequences of getting too far west and too close to it – they got caught in the light air in the centre of the low, costing them 40 miles on the fleet yesterday morning.

The expectation was that everyone would hug the coast of Holland, to stay as far away from the centre of the low as possible. Sure enough, the leading pair of Green Dragon and Ericsson 4 gybed to starboard just before 11:00 ZULU to follow the curve of the Frisian Islands round to the east.

The chasing pair of PUMA and Telefonica Black carried on to the north. A dispirited Mike Pammenter reported in his audio interview with Amanda Blackley that Telefonica Black had broken their spinnaker just before the Rotterdam Exclusion Zone. They had later seen PUMA do the same (also reported by Rick Deppe) – as a result, both boats were forced to use smaller spinnakers, and sail with a narrower wind angle to keep the speed on.

Using these smaller sails they had diverged from the leaders, slowly edging further westwards. So no real surprises when the breeze started to drop for both of them just after 12:00 ZULU. That low pressure was still out there, hovering like a lion on the edge of a herd of wildebeest, looking to pick off the lame or injured.

Telefonica Black gybed away to the east – Pammenter accepting on the audio interview that they had left it too late. It didn’t take long for confirmation that she was in trouble. Both Telefonica Blue and Delta Lloyd had gybed earlier, not far north of the line taken by Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon. And at 13:00 ZULU, Delta Lloyd was a mile ahead of Telefonica Black on the leaderboard, and Telefonica Blue just a mile behind her sistership.

But PUMA carried on going north-west, and so it took a little longer for the bad news to work its way onto the leaderboard – because of the way the Distance to Finish (DTF) calculation works. But Ken Read and his team must have realized that they were in deep dodo at 13:00 ZULU when they had just 10 knots of wind.

PUMA gybed at this point, but it was too little, too late, and although it would take until the 16:00 ZULU Position Report to confirm it, Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon were now some 30 miles ahead. We can see PUMA’s slide down the leaderboard in today’s graph of Distance to Leader (DTL) and Leg Position (LEG_POSN). Telefonica Blue and even Ericsson 3 were soon past them as well – and the battle for second place overall was wide open again.

Aboard Telefonica Blue, Media Crew, Gabri Olivo could hardly believe their change in fortune. Ken Read was taking it on the chin, sort of, although not quite as bluntly as Bouwe Bekking might, and wrote this email yesterday afternoon.

By then, PUMA’s plan had changed – they had gybed back to port, and were going north-west again, this time aiming to break out the west side of the low pressure. And that might just rescue their race. It took until 17:00 ZULU for PUMA to achieve that and find their way into 30 knots of northerly breeze. They were now committed to a very different route to the northern tip of Denmark.

PUMA continued north-west, out into the North Sea, to get clear of the low pressure. Then they tacked to port, and settled down to a long night of crashing upwind into a gale. Ken Read finished his email with the hope that the opposition still had to tackle the centre of the low pressure. And for sure, that low was not yet done with the fleet.

The forecast at this stage had the low pressure heading for Denmark on more or less the same path as the remaining six boats. Everyone was expecting to end up on the western side of the centre, in the same northerly breeze as PUMA. Aboard Delta Lloyd, Gerd-Jan Poortman expressed that view in his audio interview with Amanda Blackley.

The real trick was to do it in such a way that the centre of the low pressure ovetook them to the north, so the wind just shifted through the west into the north-west and then the north, rather than enduring the hours of light wind that PUMA had suffered by getting caught in the centre of the low.

Around the time of the 16:00 ZULU Position Report, most of the main pack put in a short exploratory gybe to the north, and for all of them, the wind went light almost immediately. Green Dragon’s skipper, Ian Walker, recorded that they were becalmed in this email - yup, the low was still out there.

The group all gybed back, and they just about managed to escape, settling down to a night of sailing downwind in light to medium breeze, tracking along the south-eastern edge of the low. If we take a look at today’s graph of True Wind Direction (TWD) and True Wind Speed (TWS), we can see how the breeze has been flicking between the east-southeast and the south-southwest all night – when what this group really needed was for it to start to go into the west, indicating that the low was passing ahead of them.

If you check out the True Wind Angle (TWA) overnight, you’ll see that Ericsson 4 was sailing at a wind angle of 100, when they had the wind direction round in the east-southeast (130). They could have been sailing due north in that wind direction, but were staying south in the hope that the low would overtake them, crossing in front.

The problem with that strategy was Denmark. If they hit the coast before the low went by, there was no place to go but north. And that’s where Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon had arrived just before the 07:00 ZULU Position Report this morning. They both had 13 knots of south-southwesterly when they hit the coast and had to turn and start sailing north, gybing down the beach.

The group of four boats behind them – Telefonica Blue, Delta Lloyd, Telefonica Black and Ericsson 3 - had decided to stay away from the land, turning to go north earlier – why? I think that they had decided they were going to have to tackle the centre of the low whether they liked it or not. And they preferred to do it offshore. Once they get through the low, they will find themselves in the northerly with a better sailing angle to the top of Denmark.

So, at 07:00 ZULU we had a line of boats from east-to-west, all going north. Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon were gybing up the beach, with Telefonica Blue 20 miles offshore. Then, a little further south but five miles further offshore we had Delta Lloyd and Telefonica Black, with Ericsson 3 due south of them.

Today’s weather image shows these boat positions at 07:00 ZULU, and the weather at 05:00 ZULU. But if we remember the wind directions that the fleet had – south-southwesterly on the coast, west-northwest for Delta Lloyd, and 50 miles out in the North Sea north-northwest for PUMA – then the low pressure was actually centred about 20 miles further north-east than in this image. We’ve marked the ‘actual’ centre with a green ‘L’, while the forecast centre has a red ‘L’.

The events of the last three hours backed that up, Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon slowed as the breeze dropped – they had finally sailed into the centre of the low pressure. While the Telefonica boats, Delta Lloyd and Ericsson 3 all look to have a light west or north-westerly breeze – they are out the other side and moving again.

The question is whether or not any of the main pack could get across in front of PUMA if they eventually had to tack. It’s still all about how fast and where the low moves to next. I’ve run the Predicted Routing out to 19:00 ZULU in this image and it shows the fleet closing up, but the most easterly boats do hold their leads. However, it’s not hard to picture a scenario in which the low pressure stalled on the coast, allowing PUMA to take the lead...

A couple from the Comments, aafke bakker was asking after the FleetBroadband Express – retired hurt after an altercation with a lobster pot, full story right here. And for Wendy Baker – no points were scored with the Rotterdam Gate Race, it was just for the glory.

With the leaders due to finish late this evening, we will be wrapping up the TEN ZULU here for Leg 8 – but given the, er ... extreme fluidity of the tactical situation, I suspect that I will be doing a guest appearance in the Afternoon Report. And then it’s over to the arrivals team in Marstrand.

And that means that this is the last TEN ZULU, no more 04:00 alarm calls. But I’m not going anywhere yet – we’re just changing the format of the coverage for the final two, very short legs, with a rolling live blog. So see you back here on Sunday afternoon for the next installment.

The TEN ZULU REPORT (so called because it follows the 10:00 GMT fleet position report, and Zulu is the meteorologist's name for GMT).

Welcome to the TEN ZULU Comments Section. I’ve had my say, now this is where you get to have yours - we want to hear your opinion on who’s fastest, who’s smartest and who’s just plain lucky. But it is fully moderated (so bad language, personal abuse, repetition etc won’t be accepted), and sometimes it might take a while for your words to get cleared - don’t expect them to appear instantly, but we’ll get there eventually ...

www.markchisnell.com

Related Audio

• Spirits not so high now - Mike Pammenter
• David Endean - the last 24 hours seems like a week
• It was cool; I saw a lot of friends - Jonny Poortman
• Tom Addis - the weather is so dynamic

Related Videos

• THROUGH THE TRANSITION ZONE
  
• CAFFEINE INJECTION