Stockholm to St Petersburg 2012

Everyone says we are having a milder winter than normal but are you yet brave enough to sail the Baltic from Sweden to Russia? Climb aboard your Seacart for a 430nm race to the home of The Hermitage Museum

As the winds were turning left we had an easy start on max VMC all the way out to the corner. It only was a bit demanding to steer as the wind shifted and the bearing changed.

Eventually we reached the tackpoint and could head for the mark, SWE54 was in a good position.

At the mark WINSTON was in the lead, no surprise there, and now we faced a 3 route option. Inside the islands, between the islands or outside..? Inside took way to much time, a lot of bad angles. The route between the island could work but had no margins at all and some low winds and bad angles. The safest route was on the outside. As it turned out it was the fastest, and very much so. The boats on the other routes were left far behind.

The leaderboard as we tacked south in the pic above.

So far the plan worked well and the weather seemed to be stable, but then came a weather update that shook things up a bit. africa was north of the fleet and was not in a very good position but the new weather suddenly had a lefthand shift that put hin right back into the game. SWE54 just tacked when the weather came in and should probably have tacked back but we were supposed to head all the way down to the coast and was hoping for the righthander to compensate the loss. We came out of the tack ok and could reach for the last mark. The last leg in was all upwind and with a Seacart30 not that optimal. Trying to stay in the stronger breeze, on the right side in the shift and not to tack too often was a challenge. SWE54 caught up a little on africa and it looked really close on the finish but SWE54 had to settle for 3rd place. WINSTON 1st and africa 2nd, well done guys!

Sailonline World Race Leg 3

Due to lack of time SWE54 just had to let the boat go on the start of leg 3. Not much time or effort could go into the first part of the race and soon we were falling behind.

 

 

RC Model SWE54

Inspired by IOM and MicroMagic I am trying to build my own RC yacht. I have an old simple RC system laying around which might come to use. First I had to decide the size and what kind of hull I want. It seems like around 500 mm will make a reasonable sized boat to be able to transport with some ease. So how should the hull look like? flat and wide or narrow and heavy..? Having a look around on RC yachts most hulls seem to be somewhat in between. Not extremely wide and still with some shape. So a nicely shaped hull with low drag then. I use FreeShip to design the hull and eventually hull No 6 came out with the lowest drag and still with a nice shape and looking ok.

Hull No 6

Now the work begins. The hull are to be shaped correctly. There are 10 stations defined and are to be printed out and transferred to a harder surface in plywood or plastic of some sort. The styrofoam is very easy to shape and then coat with a filler. Then I can coat the plug with fiberglass and depending on the result i could use that as the boat or as a mould. Maybe I go for carbonfibers and clearcoat the hull.

Volvo Ocean Race 2011 – 2012

Follow the start of leg 3 in Abu Dhabi 10.00 utc (11.00 cet, 14.00 loc)

In Sweden we can follow this live on TV10, broadcasting starts 10.45 (cet)

There is also highlights from the finish of leg 2 on TV10 , 09.40 (cet)

The training has started

AP5 SWE1

The AP5

With the fan things can almost be simulated as in real life.

The boat heels over and the next thing is to build a gimble to reduce all the friction from the straps.

A simple polarcurve to help with the windangles.

Some of the details. Old spokes became loops and rails, plugs became cleats, sticks for plants became the mast and poles.

The core is just a block of styrofoam cut and sanded into shape. The hull was then coated with filler and sanded. Then two layers of ordinary glossy paint. Some details are made from fiberglass, the keel blade, spreaders, chainplates and so on. The bulb is a big stainless steel bolt and nut in fiberglass, shaped with filler.

The sails are just cut out of a nylon fabric in one piece with no built in shape. There are steelwire taped in the top to force some shape in them.

The spinnaker is designed in a carlsson plotter program and cut from an old umbrella. The fabric is a little to thick but works ok. The parts are glued together with a standard fabric glue and the sail has a lot of shape.

The boat was never intended to sail in water and some components used are not waterproof. I might build a waterproof version later and use the RC parts from an old car, but that’s another project….

Sailonline World Race 2011-2012 – Leg 2

Leaderboard
Google Earth

On Dec 11th the 2nd leg of Sailonline World Race from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi started.

SWE 54 did not get a good start. As we turned around south and upwind the sign was wrong on the TWA angle. The boat crashed on land and dropped to 80% performance. A little damagecontrol under progress and we are slowly getting back to the frontline of boats.

East or Southeast…?

Southeast it is…

Have to remember to keep a safety margin. Closer to land might be a bit more risky.

After a horrible dc night, far behind the leaders…

It was not a very good night for SWE54 on delayed commands. We are at the moment 6 hrs behind the leaders and that is the prize for sleeping instead of steering the boat manually. Hopefully there will be some options and passinglanes up ahead.

Another day and another situation. SWE54 kept going east south of the fleet and now the northern boats are facing low winds and low speeds.

Suddenly it’s not that bad anymore

Up north the boats are lining up along the lowpressure ridge

We passed and missed the lowpressure and with that almost no wind. Up ahead we are looking at more stable conditions and wind enough to keep the speed up.

Using customized boatlist for referens boats

It’s sometimes fun and very educational to have a couple of boats to follow. As it has developed a couple of very good sailors are spread out all over the place which indicates how difficult it is to pick the fastest route this leg. It also gives the rest of us very good references. In the north we have AGage caught behind the lowpressure ridge, further south we have ita 10267 in shifty conditions but on the right side of the high and down on the south side of the fleet we have 76Trombones, just about 2 hrs ahead of SWE54. So the question is who will come out on top…? My guess is we will probably meet up somewhere around PE1, time will tell and it’s going to be interesting to follow…

On sat 17th the south pack were closing in on the tacking point and on the afternoon boats started to tack. SWE54 tacked around 15.00 utc and the long leg up north started. We have about 6 days of minor course changes just to maximize our speed before we reach the dreaded doldrums with very unstable conditions and weak winds. Having an eye on the reference boats in the three groups it’s still hard to see who picked the fastest route. It seems the norhtern boats are heading for the Muritius wpt and the southern pack has set a target further north. SWE54 has at the moment the target set at PE2 which took us were we are at the moment.

The three reference boats and SWE54 06:19 utc Sun 18th.

The two northern boats, ita10267 and AGage, are closer to Mauritius at the moment but how will it look like in 5-6 days…? We will probably end up on parallel headings after the passage of Mauritius and then it might be easier to compare.

The northern fleet has a lot of upwind to deal with while the southern pack is an a nice reach.

Lows and highs are like black holes, they just suck you right in, no mercy…

24 hrs later and  it is starting to look good for the south pack.

Another 24hrs later and the south pack, now the east pack, are ahead…

Already the SWE54 pack, lead by Exmeromotu at the moment, is now in front, a bit sooner than expected.

Gunnar R holding the Swedish colours high….!

Looking at our reference boats will tell the story so far…

Crunchtime! Are we on the best crossing position..?

Now the southern group are cashing in and are advancing nicely on the east side of the fleet. The doldrums are next hurdle and we are all looking for the best place to cross the lows.

SWE54 in the shifty weather in the doldrums. The TWA steering mode shows the windforecast.

The fleet splitting up in two major groups

The passage was this time during daytime(local) and beeing home for the Christmas holidays there were time to babysit the boat through the lows. The passage was done well, SWE54 entered as #50 and came out on the other side as #27. It also looks like we gained some on the leaders but that can be a kind of illusion as they will hit the stronger winds sooner and, most likely, pull away some.

Our reference boats Fri 23rd 06.00 utc.

Still cashing in on last weeks southern route.

The big lows in the doldrums are swallowing a lot of boats like a giant black hole. One important thing is never to trust the router too much and stay away from danger areas just like this if possible. Here it’s even more challenging since we have to cross the belt and we need to find the best spot to do this. If SWE54 had followed the router last week we also had been stuck in the big hole at PE1. On long ocean racing it seems to pay off to let the pilot charts have a big say in the planning and just letting the router take care of the day by day sailing.

A group of boats cut off by the doldrums.

An example of the not so accurate ranking system. Garagiste as #1 but we are a lot of boats higher up towards the finish, SWE as #33. It only seems accurate when all the boats are forced to pass a mark very close.

A drag race to PE3 and the fleet seem to line up and now we get a valid ranking.

The top boats are turning around PE3 and head for the Gulf of Oman. SWE54 as #16.

Now we have a delicate issue up ahead. The weather in the Gulf of Oman is dominated by low winds and they are shifting. How much can we trust the routers? We will most likely see solutions spread all over the Gulf but which will be the best one?

Heading into the Gulf and the shifty weather.

Some boats are sailing low and some are keeping a bit to windward. Some are really active and try to use the polar as much as possible by changing hdg back and forth. Will it help and increase avg speed…? We will see soon enough. Another 6 hrs and we are sailing into a header, the “3rd quarter” of this leg begins.

The original plan was to keep as high as possible and try to reach the other coastline for a safer passage. With every update the router kept showing a route along the southern shore  and finally SWE54 was convinced to stay low.

As we were getting further in to the gulf the winds seem to be along the northern shore. “Trust your feelings…”. Time for damage control and head nw. PetrM was close to SWE54 as we entered the gulf, he had decided to go for the southern shore so that will be a good reference for a while.

This is were it all went wrong. If we had kept high we might have mad it through to the other side. Now the lack of confidence we trusted the router a bit too much. Luckily we got out of the south side and kept the damage to a minimum, so far…

New years eve and not that much time to spend on this… Just trying to sail in the right direction at the moment. Caught up by the weather and is hardly moving.

Forgot to clear old dc’s and the boat took off in a not so desirable angle. Caught it a bit late and got the boat back on course. Now we really were falling behind. The leaders are well on their way sw towards the finishline.

SWE54 eventually got through and was on the way sw. The reference boat PetrM still had some miles to go and we can see the difference it makes in such short time. The northern side was obviously the one to choose.

Another small issue, crashed on land during the night and don’t really know for how long we were stranded.

Finally on the last leg in.

The top 20. Congratz to the podium boats. Well done.

SWE54 ended up on 34th.

Better luck next time…

(If you find something not quite right, missing or something else, please let me know and I will try to fix it….)

Volvo Ocean Race start leg 2

Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race starts at 13.00 utc

volvooceanracevideoss kanal – YouTube
livestream.com
Sail.tv

in Sweden it can also be seen on TV10 13.45 loc.

Volvo Ocean Race – Cape Town In port race

Live from Cape Town, start 12.45 utc
Racestart 13.00 utc

 

volvooceanrace

sail.tv

 

Asian Sprints 4 – Golden Gun Run

The fourth and last race in the Asian Sprints 4-race series in Orange cats. This leg takes us on an 1167nm hunt for Scaramanga, from Singapore to the island of Ko Tapu!
Race starts: Fri 09th 10:00

Leaderboard
Google Earth

While waiting for the start of the VolvoOceanRace SWE54 are racing in the Asian Sprints 4 on a 125 ft Cat.

The Orange 125 Cat. polar.

The racecourse takes us from Singapore around the Car Nicobar Island and finishes in Ko Tapu.

The first leg takes us up NW through the strait of Malacca, in very low winds. Further up it will get shifty and very unstable by the looks of it. So far the start and the first hours out in the strait has gone well and we are in a nice position for hopefully a not so difficult autopilot night.

The fleet is already spreading out and charging along like an armada.

Sailonline World Race 2011-2012 – Leg 1, Alicante-Cape Town

The first in this 9 leg race across the globe. Leg 1: A race from Alicante to Cape Town across 6500nm in a VO70. Fair Winds challengers!
Race starts: Sat 05th 13:00 utc.

Sailonline
Leaderboard
Google Earth
Virtual-Loup-de-Mer

The Volvo Ocean Race 2011 – 2012

To see the VolvoOceanRace start live:

YouTube
SailTV
Livestream

 As for the virtual races the planning is on. There is a lowpressure system just south of France and a highpressure system northwest of the Canary Islands. The low should give us winds but as we pass Gibraltar and get out into the Atlantic the high will be there waiting for us.

Weatherforecast 2011-11-05 13.00 utc

Pilotchart N.Atlantic

Pilotchart S.Atlantic

Finally some time to spend on this…

The fleet squeezing through the straits of Gibraltar.

The first part of the race in the Med was ok and SWE54 reached the straits of Gibraltar in a good position but then the problem started…
As real life actually has priority the first part of the Atlantic had to be sailed on “autopilot”. The result was after a couple of days  obvious, it’s hard to keep up not giving it the time it needs. I also had to abandon the boat on Virtual-loup-de-mer. SWE54 was first setting up for a route due west and so did most of the top sailors. On the “autopilot”-mode SWE54 turned down south and had to go for the quick_and_safe option.

Converging with the west fleet.

As we were starting to met up with the west fleet the results were in, the west rout was the right one. SWE54 did not loose that much in the end, around 2-3 hrs.

On the long leg towards the Equator.

Soon we got into the wind and we were on the long reach south towards the equator and the dreaded doldrums. Even the boats hugging the African coast started to head west, trying to join the fleet. When we reach the doldrums the leading boats are slowing in first so we might catch up some but it is also important to pick up speed on the other side ASAP. This time the doldrums were very kind to us and we managed to pass through in lighter winds, no major shifts and weather systems bouncing around us creating a small chaos.

We are now on the southern hemisphere heading for Fernando De Noronha.

Fri Nov 18th
We passed Fernando De Noronha in the middle of the night and with some safety margin to avoid crashing. Just a small coursechange was made and SWE54 had not yet really decided how much east to go. Most of the leading pack, about 70 boats (!), were heading ESE so SWE 54 will keep a slightly more southern course, just following will not take the boat up in the leaderboard. Still some 4-5 days before reaching the highs and then we will hook up with the lows on the southside, hopefully get a great ride east.

Still a lot of boats close together heading for southern latitudes.

Not much has happened the last days as we all were heading south. No changes in the weather and because of that no alternative routes.

Another 2,5 days to go

There is only one gybe to do and then we head almost strait for Cape Town. That gybe will be very important to execute in the correct place at the correct time when there are so many boats close together. Places to gain…or loose…

The last gybe done and “only” 820 nm to go

The last hrs and on a broad reach.

SWE54 ended up on a 51st place, acceptable concidering the time issues in the norhtern Atlantic.

Top Ten boats.

A long leg and one of the easiest passages from the north to the south Atlantic. This time it was a good thing, kept SWE54 in the game. Looking forward to the start of leg 2…