The B&G Report- Volvo Ocean Race - Go South - Leg 1, Week 3

by Mark Chisnell for B&G on 30 Oct 2014 Top Volvo Ocean Race correspondent and analyst, Mark Chisnell writes a regular report for B&G on the current race and trends he sees developing. Here's his third analysis of Leg 1 .

We left the fleet a week ago just as they ran slap bang into the wall of the Doldrums. On the afternoon of the 21st October, the front row were lined up west to east, left to right; Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, Team Brunel, Dongfeng Race Team, MAPFRE and Team Vestas Wind – as we can see in (Pic 1).

We’ve said several times before, but it bears repeating that traditional wisdom favours the west when entering the Doldrums, and so the smart money was always on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Team Brunel exiting first. And so it turned out.

The Gate Opens

The gate opened and Ian Walker and Bouwe Bekking’s boats shot out of it overnight on the 22/23rd October (all times are UTC). We can see in (Pic 2) that they are just about side-by-side in the south-east trade winds. Behind them, the main pack now constituted Dongfeng Race Team, MAPFRE, Team Alvimedica and Team SCA – all still wallowing in Doldrums weather and playing cloud roulette.

The really interesting thing was the escape of Team Vestas Wind – up to third place and matching the speed of the lead pair. They were the most easterly boat going into the Doldrums – almost 150 miles away from the eventual leaders. Skipper Chris Nicholson and navigator Wouter Verbraak either sold their souls to the devil or played a blinder in the clouds. I can’t remember the last time I saw boats escape like this from both edges of the fleet – but then, this is the Doldrums and while you have to play the percentages, anything can happen.

Trade Wind Bliss

While it was blissful trade wind sailing for the front three, the rest of the pack struggled until later on the 23rd. In (Pic 3), we can see that they were all finally moving by late afternoon. By then the gaps were big: Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing led the front-runner of the straggling pack, Dongfeng Race Team by 164nm – that was the real cost of the Chinese team’s broken rudder way back north of the Cape Verde Islands (read last week’s blog to find out why).

In all the talk of exiting the Doldrums, the other consideration that’s always mentioned is the lateral separation east to west. Once the boats get out into the south-east trade winds, they are all headed to the island of Fernando de Noronha (FdN), which they must leave to port. In theory, the further east a boat is positioned, the wider and faster the reaching angle in the south-east trades, and the faster it can go.

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