Blown wide open

Friday, 22 May 2009 10:00 GMT

THE TEN ZULU REPORT, LEG 7, DAY 7

By Mark Chisnell

Torben Grael's Ericsson 4 blew a bit more than the doors off yesterday. They blew leg seven wide open with a move to position themselves 100 miles north of the bunch in the final sprint for Galway – but they did it with their eyes wide open too.

The race to Galway might have opened, but the race overall may be starting to lock down – PUMA did a little blowing up of their own yesterday evening when their rudder snapped. They’ve done a remarkable job since then, particularly given the conditions, but it’s not going to help their cause in the overall rankings.

At 10:00 ZULU this morning the fleet was screaming downwind in 30 knots of westerly breeze. To the north, Ericsson 4 led Green Dragon and Ericsson 3 by around 40 miles. While more than a 100 miles to the south, Telefonica Blue had Delta Lloyd right on her shoulder, with PUMA coming back into the yacht race and stretching again from Telefonica Black behind her.

There may be a huge amount of lateral separation (or leverage) between these two groups on the water, but there’s nary a cigarette paper between them on the leaderboard – Ericsson 4 led Telefonica Blue by just nine miles this morning.

The big split developed yesterday while we were on our unintentional “technical StealthPlay”. In fact it all kicked off about the time that we lost our eyes on the fleet. During the day, the tactical options didn’t change from those I explained in yesterday’s TEN ZULU, as the cold front swept through the fleet.

However, while the chess board may not have changed, the pieces did - by mid-morning the set-up was completely different to that described in the TEN ZULU (it was more of a FOUR ZULU). But with everything back up and running, I’ll try and bring it to you play-by-play – it’s quite complicated today, so, deep breath, I’m going in...

Let’s start with PUMA and Delta Lloyd. They both gybed to starboard at about 04:00 ZULU. At this point everyone had a south to south-southwest breeze, so after the gybe they were going north-east, on a track just a few miles north of the line being taken by Ericsson 4 and Telefonica Black, both those boats were already on starboard.

Telefonica Blue also gybed to starboard at about the same time, also setting up to go north-east, and in a lane just a few miles north of PUMA and Delta Lloyd. So by 05:00 ZULU yesterday morning, all five of the leading boats were on starboard, and going north-east.

Then, at 06:00 ZULU Telefonica Black gybed to port. Ericsson 4 was probably close enough to watch them split. And at that point, the last information Jules Salter and Torben Grael on Ericsson 4 had was from the 04:00 ZULU Position Report, when Telefonica Blue, Delta Lloyd and PUMA were still headed north, on port gybe.

So to Salter and Grael it must have looked like the whole leading group was headed north, except for them. No surprise, when at 06:40 ZULU, Ericsson 4 gybed to port to go north as well. The 07:00 ZULU Position Report revealed the truth. Telefonica Black reacted by gybing back to starboard at 08:00 ZULU to stick with the bunch. And Ericsson 4 didn’t.

(Ton Franken asked in yesterday’s Comments if the boats were still getting position reports during the website outage, and the answer is yes, they were).

In the early afternoon, Ericsson 4’s Media Crew, Guy Salter sent in an email that reported, “The fleet looks to have split so Jules (Salter, navigator) is running and re-running routes to check we are happy heading north before its too late to consolidate some of our position.” I don’t know when Guy wrote that, but at just after 11:00 ZULU Ericsson 4 hit the cold front. The wind shifted 40-50 degrees towards the north and increased. They were pointing at Galway in a gale of westerly breeze, and there was no going back...

Meanwhile, at 04:00 ZULU yesterday morning, we had left Ericsson 3 and Green Dragon set up to the south of everyone, on starboard and going north-east. But they both gybed at the 07:00 ZULU Position Report and headed north, following Ericsson 4. Ericsson 3’s Media Crew, Gustav Morin reckoned this was some of the best sailing they’ve had in the whole race, with 25-30 knots of wind and boat speed in bright sunshine. Not sure that Justin Slattery felt the same way on Green Dragon a little later in the day.

The pair skimmed past the north-eastern tip of the ice exclusion zone around midday, and hit the cold front soon after. The wind picked up and, right on the edge of control, the teams changed down to smaller sails – as Ian Walker reported.

Walker subsequently phoned in for an audio interview after the cold front had passed over them. He reckoned the tactical battle had gone with it. They were on starboard, pointing at Galway and focused on sailing fast and safe in some grown-up conditions. Options closed.

So Ian Walker’s overnight question to the Virtual Gamers was simple, “There are no real tactical decisions as we have to carry on on starboard and we have little choice of angles as we are so dictated by the conditions and the sail plan. So how hard do we push?” To which the answer was – as hard as you can. You’ve no mercy, you gamers.

In contrast, PUMA, Delta Lloyd, Telefonica Blue and Telefonica Black still had a choice. Locked into their own duel, they all chose to stay on starboard and ride ahead of the cold front for as long as possible. Instead of gybing north, to get the other side of it as Roger Nilson described. And they managed to keep ahead of the front until the evening.

The result was that all of yesterday afternoon we had the fleet slowly diverging. The northern group was on port gybe in a west-northwesterly, and the southern group on starboard in a south-southwesterly. But while the grandmasters were shuffling the pieces on the board, the bare-knuckle fighters were dusting it up on deck as close-quarter battles raged through the fleet.

PUMA were on fire, as Erle Williams reported during the afternoon. They had cut the gap to Delta Lloyd and Telefonica Blue to nothing, and blasted past Telefonica Black.

Black’s navigator, Roger Nilson described the race going by them. "We had to watch PUMA passing us effortlessly, going more than a knot faster and a few degrees lower under her biggest masthead gennaker in 27 knots of cold air. The Blue (Telefonica) boat embarrassed us the same way as PUMA, but it was more painful with PUMA as she was so close when she passed us, just a few hundred metres away!"

They were fast, but not 24-hour-record-pace fast - I think the sea state will be a bit rough for that. And certainly not fast enough to hold off the cold front. It caught up with the southern group at about 18:00 GMT last night, and they all gybed to port in the west-northwesterly. But by then they were over 100 miles from the northern group, and that (as you’ll know by now if you’re a regular) was a whole lot of leverage.

It was about this time that PUMA’s race unravelled. Skipper, Ken Read described how the rudder snapped and the boat lurched out of control in this email - navigator Andrew Cape helping them all to find the humour in a grim situation (I won’t spoil the story, you have to read it). They got on with rigging the emergency rudder, and have been charging ever since – it must be a seriously good emergency rudder.

So, who’s going to come out of this on top? It looks like its going to pay to be to the north. I’ve set up today’s first route image for the boat positions at 07:00 ZULU and the weather for 17:00 ZULU. We can see that the big low pressure system that the fleet have been riding with is now forecast to move north-east, and the wind will ease back as it pulls away. But crucially, the breeze will remain stronger in the north for longer – and that should advantage the northern group. The Predicted Data reckons that Ericsson 4 will have stretched her advantage to Telefonica Blue by this time tomorrow morning.

However, take a look at today’s Predicted Route image for the boat positions and weather in 24 hours time. The fleet will by then be running in the south-westerly wind ahead of another low pressure system that you can see on the left of the picture.

So as the wind shifts, they will all have to gybe back to starboard. That will give the northern group an opportunity to close the leverage if they want to gybe a bit early – but it will cost them some of their advantage to do so.

And they might need all of it – this new low pressure system is forecast to steam up behind them, and the stronger wind with it should push the back markers towards the leaders. We’ve seen this before, and while the scenario usually closes the fleet up, it doesn’t often result in a pass.

But the gaps are tiny at these speeds - just one bad sail change, half a bad wipe-out, and a lot less than a breakdown. As Wouter Verbraak reported, the sun’s back up and the hammer’s back down. The boats are either in the right or the wrong place, but they still gotta keep it on the rails - it’s wide open.

And finally, Ton Franken also raised an interesting point in his Comment yesterday. While the fleet did have Position Reports during the split, his suggestion that less Position Reports makes for more open racing is generally true. But the frequent updates also make it more fun to watch – and tend to keep the fleet together for tight finishes. As Ton says, “Oh, dilemma ...” So which would you prefer? – Hit the comments button.

Competition winner

The competition deadline was 23:00 ZULU Thursday night, and the results are in, although it took us a while to find a hat big enough to put all the entries in. We had to settle for using the recycling bin in the end. So you can rest assured that your entries are close to carbon zero.

The correct answer was the schooner Atlantic, and her skipper Charlie Barr. If you’d like to read the original New York Times report on the victory, then click here - although I suspect a few of you already have...

And the winner of the very fine Volvo Ocean Race jacket is Marcel Blom – congratulations, we’ll be in touch.

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

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