Leg two updates

[chic014 0]

it looks like the maldives are well inside the "stealth zone" to me.

 

Stealth zone where we can't see where they are on the tracker, and exclusion zone where the boats are not allowed to go are different things.

 

Exclusion zone is shown in the sailing instructions I mentioned:

 

http://noticeboard.volvooceanrace.com/w ... dendum.pdf

 

"The EAEZ is formed by a great circle line between: Maputo (east coast of South Africa),

the southern tip of Madagascar, the North side of Mauritius, GPS positions west of the

Maldives and the west coast of India. While racing no part of a boat’s hull may cross this line"

[Guest]

Last update from me untill Sunday night where hopefully ill get around to doing the week in review. The south looks to be paying off at the moment, but theres still a long way to go in this for. Nice to see that both kiwi dominated crews are in nice positions at the moment despite not being in the lead.

[Guest]

Finally someone's flinched.

 

Sanya has bailed and is heading north.

[ec12nz 1]

Flinched or broken something?

[RushMan 31]

Is this leg going to be sailed through large areas with not much breeze?

[Guest]

Flinched or broken something?

 

They have not broken anything. They are heading north to catch the low forming to the East of Madagascar. I have been looking at the grib files for a couple of days wondering when someone was going to opt for that route. According to the story on the volvooceanrace home page Sanya had been mulling over the same thing too.

[Guest]

Has anyone been bored enough to work out where the waypoint is?

 

By taking Sanya and Groupama's distance to go you should be able to draw two arcs - where they interesect would be the waypoint... right?

 

how good is Sanya's call to bail out and go north looking now?

[Guest]

Go Sanya!!!!!!!!!! Im loving this and it would almost be perfect except for Camper not being second.

[chic014 0]

Has anyone been bored enough to work out where the waypoint is?

 

By taking Sanya and Groupama's distance to go you should be able to draw two arcs - where they interesect would be the waypoint... right?

 

how good is Sanya's call to bail out and go north looking now?

 

Yea I did it the other day. Not as easy as drawing arcs, because they don't say distance to finish, they only give distance to leader.

 

I calculated the great circle distance between the boat's current position from the last update and the waypoint. Then I worked out the distance to leader(not truly distance to leader, more like difference in distance to waypoint) and compared that to the stated distance to leader given by the tracker. I tried lots of waypoints ( all the Sailing instruction GPS positions of the exclusion zone, Male(capital of Maldives), Diego Garcia(Island where US Military base is)) but by far the best match was the GPS point west of the Maldives given in the sailing instructions : 00° 30.000' 72° 51.500'E.

 

There is a small error, but I think this is due to the slightly different great circle algorithms I used and what the tracker uses. Still only 0.5 miles over 2700 miles = 0.018% error = sweet f#$% all.

 

See attached the spreadsheet. That tells us where the waypoint is that they're basing the tracker off, but still no confirmation of the pickup port

[khayyam 68]

that's dedication!

 

it'll be disappointing if you're right, though - having the finish be in the 'stealth zone' is going to make it pretty boring!

[Grinna 2]

More boring than it is already??

[Guest]

Thanks chic014... If that (Male, Diego Garcia or the GPS point mentioned) is a waypoint, and not the actual pick up point, then I reckon my guess of KOchi as the pick up point is not looking too bad a guess...

[Guest]

So the boat that posed the least threat in terms of boat speed has jumped on the fleet and is in a very strong position if Volvo is to bielieved as we still dont know where this port is exactly and the stealth zone is approaching very rapidly for the Chinese boat. Anyway here is some info for you to all read before I go to work.

 

The first ever sole Chinese entry in the Volvo Ocean Race has taken the lead on the second leg to Abu Dhabi after making a bold tactical decision which could see them take on a fearsome tropical storm in the Indian Ocean.

 

Team Sanya, skippered by New Zealand’s Mike Sanderson, broke away from the six-boat fleet yesterday and headed north towards a tropical depression containing 50-knot headwinds.

 

For the gamble to pay off, Sanderson needs the intense low pressure system to move east allowing Sanya to ‘thread the needle’ between the storm and Madagascar.

 

As the only boat in this race to have competed in the last edition (as Telefónica Blue), Team Sanya has struggled to match the raw power of the newer boats – a factor which Sanderson readily acknowledges and says leads naturally towards tactical risk-taking.

 

“I have been very clear on this from the very start of this campaign,” he said. “We are not fast enough through the water to win this race overall so we need to take opportunities like this to try to win a leg or get on the podium.

 

“We may only get an opportunity like this a few times in the race, where there is a chance to do something different.

 

“We worked very hard to try and talk ourselves out of it but at the end of the day we think this gives us the best chance of being in the hunt.”

 

Despite the prospect of facing storm conditions worse than those which eliminated Sanya from Leg 1 after damage to their bow left them close to sinking on the first night, Sanderson does not believe this latest strategy to be overly daring.

 

“I don’t expect anyone was terribly surprised to see us make this move. For sure all the navigators and skippers will have been stewing over this too for some time.

 

“There are several risks for sure. One is that we are heading into a reasonably large low pressure system where we could see as much as 50 knots of wind. The other risk is simply that we would have done better going the other way.

 

“We have been working so hard on this decision for so long and it certainly wasn’t spur of the moment. We will live by the sword or die by the sword so to speak.”

 

As Sanya forged north, Franck Cammas’ Groupama sailing team were following an equally extreme strategy 250 nautical miles to the south east.

 

Twenty four hours earlier, Groupama had also left the pack, diving deep into the south before eventually looping back towards the north in more favourable breezes.

 

This forthright move propelled the French crew into second place by the 0700 UTC position report this morning but had not been without problems according to media crew member Yann Riou.

 

“We ended up in some kind of no man’s land,” he said. “It was a weird zone with several trains of waves coming together to create pyramidal waves which were impossible to cross without worrying about breaking the boat.”

 

Meanwhile the remaining boats were trying to shake themselves free of a transient wind zone that had slowed their progress for several days.

 

At around midday today after sailing in close company for two days, Ken Read’s PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG and Chris Nicholson’s CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand both made the breakthrough into steadier conditions.

 

Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Iker Martínez’s Team Telefónica followed suit later in the afternoon.

 

After an opening week which saw the fleet closely packed, Sanya and Groupama’s extreme moves have thrown the second leg wide open and the skippers and navigators have some nervous days ahead as the three very different strategies play out.

 

By the 1300 UTC position report Team Sanya’s more northerly track put them closer to the race’s virtual waypoint and they remained at the top of the leaderboard.

 

In the south, after becoming embroiled in the Indian Ocean high pressure system, Groupama’s progress had been slowed by lighter winds.

 

Still pushing east in search of trade wind sailing PUMA, CAMPER and Team Telefónica remained in close company, with Abu Dhabi chasing hard to close them down.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Camper#p/u/6/s17TSyLt20w

[Guest]

Press release of the 18/12/2011

 

2011/12/18 - 18h30

 

Indian Struggle

 

Groupama in the Volvo Ocean Race

 

After a week of racing, the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race has experienced a drastic change of tempo with a Chinese leader striking out on its own to the North, a French option to the far East and a central pack. The formation of a tropical depression has changed the deal somewhat...

 

Between Sanya and Groupama 4, the lateral separation has now stretched to nearly 600 miles! In the space of a day, the hierarchy has been turned completely on its head and the situation will continue to intensify in the coming hours since the Chinese boat is about to carry out a hold-up with its strategic initiative. Indeed, by splitting away from the others on an option due North towards Madagascar, Mike Sanderson has taken the head of the fleet and is set to increase his lead dramatically... The oldest VO-70 of the fleet should have increased its lead by six times in the next 24 hours. As such we can well imagine a delta of over 200 miles compared with Groupama 4, which will also be out on her own as the central group has no other choice than to reposition itself towards the North too.

 

A violent system

 

The difficulty for the crew of Sanya will be to pass through a tropical depression orbiting beneath the large African island: what will be its exact trajectory? This Sunday afternoon, it is deepening and becoming active with a vast mass of clouds and winds which will be in excess of forty knots on Monday morning. Will the Chinese boat be keen to endure the strongest of the gale to the East, or will it have had the time to traverse the zone so it is in the centre of a barometric minimum where the breeze is more manageable? In any case, the crew will really get shaken about over the coming hours. However, if the boat reaches the latitude of the South-East tip of Madagascar before noon, its option will have been a complete success. Indeed Sanya will then be able to head offshore, towards Réunion Island, so as to reposition itself in front of the whole fleet with a considerable lead... Before that though, it will have to suffer the anger of this violent system which will really take the Chinese boat by the horns.

 

The situation is very different for Groupama 4, which was the first out of the front but must now claw back some ground to the North so as not to get stuck in the high pressure which is settling ahead of her bow. As soon as the breeze, which has been gradually easing since Sunday morning, shifts round to the North-East, Franck Cammas and his men will put in a tack towards Réunion Island, where the focus will be on trying to pass in front of the central group, which also escaped the front this Sunday morning. The gains then should be sizeable because as the French boat covers ground to the North, the wind will turn favourably round to the East as it builds. In three days' time then, it will be better to sail at 60° East so as to distance oneself from the remainder of the light airs left in the wake of the tropical depression between Madagascar and Mauritius.

 

Tropical convergence

 

Indeed everyone is set to converge on the same point to pass the Tropic of Capricorn, so as to remain in a steady easterly air flow until it enters the furtive zone defined by the organisation of the Volvo Ocean Race. However, the fleet will be approximately lined up for the long compulsory stretch towards the equatorial Doldrums. With the same steady wind conditions and moderate beam seas, the six VO-70s will be going at virtually the same speed. As such the separation which will be built up in the coming hours will determine the hierarchy, perhaps right the way to the finish line!

 

As a result, the standings for this second leg may be defined at the end of this weekend, at least for the podium. If Sanya passes through the tropical storm without hassle, it will have considerable room for manoeuvre (at least 200 miles). If Groupama 4 puts in a tack before nightfall, she too will have a lead of about a hundred miles over the central group, a delta which should increase at the start of the week since she'll be first to benefit from an easterly wind rotation and its increase in strength. This strange second leg will have been completely turned on its head in a little over a day!

[Guest]

Well camper say there heading straight for the finish line now after tacking. The Maldives are looking better and better as the finish now. If this is the case then Sanya are not looking as good as they are while groupama are in a strong position as well. Unless something happens Abu Dhabi could be left behind and they cant back off when they run into 30 knots as their following 3 other boats 80nm infront of them. It has not been a good leg for them and I would hate to be on that boat.

[Guest]

Heres a brief write up about what has happened so far in the volvo. Great to see that there have been no major breakages so far and all the boats are still racing.

 

 

Now that it is looking good that we know where the boats are going I feel more confident in writing this week in review. However we could go wrong, but peoples assumptions look to be correct on the finish line as Camper have declared that they are heading towards the finish now which means we wont know where they are in several days time.

At the start Abu Dhabi came out firing and lead the boats out of Cape Town after an interesting start. All the boats were late to the line and were slow to hoist their headsails as well. Abu Dhabi were the first to hoist and got into the pressure first after several hundred meters and never looked back. Telefonica on the other hand stalled before the start and were playing catch up as they got left behind, leaving me to assume that they are not good in the light after their performance so far in the light. This assumption grew stronger as the fleet quickly ran into no wind after 12 hours and Telefonica continued to struggle in less than 5 knots.

It was a mine field as the boats headed south from Cape Town and the strategy onboard Camper and Groupama was looking good as they lead early despite a massive lateral distance between the boats at Cape Horn. Sanya with the slowest boat in a straight line was doing a great job in the light and where holding onto third nicely until the breeze built up again.

After Cape Horn the boats hit a massive hole which saw them doing less than 2kts for some time and on the tracker it looks like they were all dancing. When they found the wind again Puma had overtaken Sanya and took third place of them, but the slow boat was still dominating Abu Dhabi and Telefonica as they played follow the leader for the next two days. The boats then had to decide to stay in shore or go offshore in search of breeze, with the boats that stayed closer into shore taking the lead over those that went offshore as they battled there way across the bottom of South Africa and into the Indian Ocean. This gave Abu Dabi and Telefonica the opportunity to catch up and they took it with arms wide open as there ‘main’ competition headed further south.

After several days of straight-line dragging eastward, Groupama gaind on the leaders as those further North had to dive south to avoid a nasty high pressure system that didn’t allow them to go where they wanted to. After the fleet compressed Groupama decided to continue with their original strategy as they headed south again as the boats were in varying wind strengths between 5-15 knots.

Strategy then played a massive role in dictating what we now see in the leaderboard as Groupama ran the furthest south While Sanya bailed to go north and find better pressure and extend on their lead. The other four boats played it safe and are in a speed battle as they are spread over 30nm while Abu Dhabi are 80nm behind the leader of the chasing pack.

While Sanya might be looking good at the moment they are the most westward boat and have to travel east at some point as they are not heading towards the finish at the moment unlike the other 5 boats. This will dictate who was right between Sanya and Groupama, but it is great to see them splitting from the fleet and making it more interesting.

[Guest]

Tracker update. If I did it properly you will see that there are over 650nm seperating Sanya and groupama at the two extremes of the fleet.

 

Where camper are heading.

If they are heading for the finish the Maldives are right in their path in which case refer back to the next page to see how the boats are tracking to this destination. Sanyas gamble is looking very interesting now as they have to go east instead of the northerly route that they just took.

[SloopJohnB 322]

The lastest update is a bit slow coming.

[chic014 0]

Sanya damaged rigging and heading to Madagascar...

 

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/4 ... epair.html

[Guest]

Oh man. That would really rip your nightie.

 

Lucky they delayed the tack though...