Sal's Ocean Globe Race Analysis: A roll of the dice has occurred!
There has been a roll of the dice among the fleet of the Ocean Globe Race.
As they make their way up the South Atlantic, towards the Equator, boats have taken very different tactical routes, seeing them spread over 500 miles from West to East.
Pen Duick VI took the furthest Easterly route in the hunt the best breeze, but the gamble didn’t pay off, and they have cut their losses to rejoin the pack. Sterna has taken the other extreme out to the West of the track. Evrika suffered considerable damage in the collision at the start, taking out their pulpit and damaging their furling gear. They have been busy with repairs to enable them to continue racing.
The rest of the fleet are spanning between them and have had some stop start conditions with small weather systems causing holes in the wind.
The past couple of days have given Maiden some fast downwind conditions enabling her to stay at the top end of the fleet. Hatches will have been gratefully opened and the deck festooned with foul weather gear getting a much needed drying after the upwind slog of the previous days. They must make the best of the Champagne sailing, it isn’t set to last.
All the boats got as much weather information as possible before the start, but now, after a week at sea, they are relying on weatherfax that they might pick up , or information from passing ships.
The weather looks very changeable over the next days with more stop start conditions and yet more upwind looming. Life at an angle seems to be the theme for this fourth and last leg of the OGR. It certainly isn’t going to be easy and with such tricky, changeable winds, the race is still there for the taking.The next few days are going to be interesting!
By Sal Hunter, original crew member on Maiden in the 89/90 Whitbread Round the World Race.
