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….)
Azursailing 