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12:31 PM Sun 23 Nov 2008 GMT
Torben Grael and Ericsson 4 stumbled into the traffic last night, grinding to a halt and forced to watch as Anders Lewander and his Ericsson 3 boys found an alternative route to the west and pushed their advantage into double digit mileage for a while.
But by 10:00 ZULU, the jam had cleared and traffic was flowing again - albeit a little reordered - everyone headed east-northeast as the wind picked up. It's settled into the east-southeasterly True Wind Direction that we were expecting, and was blowing at a pretty steady 14 knots True Wind Speed, for everyone except Delta Lloyd, who were still struggling to clear the high pressure ridge. That means they were all reaching, with the wind on the beam - fast and wet - but almost directly towards Cochin.
When we left them yesterday, the fleet had sorted themselves into a tidy, three row formation - furthest north and in the front row were the Ericsson boats. Chasing them in the second row were Telefonica Blue, Green Dragon and PUMA, while covering the exits at the rear were Telefonica Black, Team Russia and Delta Lloyd.
The set-up is less easy to summarise this morning, and that's thanks to a blistering 24 hours from the Telefonica boats, both of which have jumped clear of their immediate opponents, and in the case of Telefonica Blue, are close to catching the row in front. That's partly thanks to the traffic jam, but I also think they are starting to come good on their promised performance in this light to medium air reaching.
Green Dragon also had a couple of slow hours
This morning Ericsson 3 still have the lead, but Ericsson 4 are slowly grinding them down, with Telefonica Blue closing to within 25 miles. The big reshuffle happened yesterday evening, around 19:00 ZULU when Ericsson 4's True Wind Speed (TWS) plummeted, dropping as low as three knots at one point, and staying soft for a couple of hours, which cost them dearly on the Leaderboard at 22:00 ZULU. Anders Lewander subsequently took the opportunity to sail a slightly tighter True Wind Angle (TWA), going a little more east than the majority of the fleet, closing down the leverage and positioning himself more directly between the bulk of the fleet and the finish.
Torben Grael and co weren't the only ones to hit the traffic - following in their wake, Green Dragon also had a couple of slow hours in almost the same spot (a little further north) just after midnight. To their east, PUMA were much less affected, while Team Russia and Delta Lloyd have lost miles - although I suspect that's more about being south and still in the high pressure ridge. But to the west of Ericsson 4's track, Team Telefonica and Ericsson 3 have (mostly) sailed blithely onwards and upwards. All these changes are shown in today's graph of Distance to Leader (DTL) and Leg Position (LEG_POSN).
There is some of the luck of the draw in this - especially in the dark, when you have no clues from clouds or wind on the water to warn you of impending doom. Then there are the other random handbrakes that Team Russia and Ericsson 3 have reported in the past couple of days. As for the wobble in Telefonica Blue's track, I think that's due to them getting the shift into the trade winds in one blast - maybe they were forced, or chose to bear away while they got the spinnaker down and a headsail up.
With everyone now in - or within gasping distance of - the trade winds, and steaming past Madagascar (or is South Korea?), the leverage has dropped off quickly in the last 24 hours. That's because not only have Ericsson 3 been moving east relative to the fleet, but the boat on the opposite flank, Delta Lloyd, have tucked in more to the west. The convergence has meant that there are now less than 60 miles between them - half what it was after they had completed their gybe yesterday morning. We can also see the squeeze box effect working at 10:00, as the northerly leaders get the hammer down and clear out in the trade winds.
So what next? The latest medical report from Doctor Bouwe also comments on the upcoming Doldrums, and the problem that they face without any historical data - something we talked about in the Leg 2 Preview, and which is about to become the focus of attention.
You can end up on a hill with the wrong gear ratio
Moving on to check out today's Deckman for Windows rather more accurate Predicted Route, which is set from Ericsson 3's position at 08:00 ZULU this morning. The Predicted Route (the red line running north-south) shows them holding the east-southeasterly trade winds through to the afternoon of the 25th, at which point the breeze will start to fade. This Doldrums crossing will be another transition zone, with westerly breeze on the northern side. They should break into that on the 28th and have a fast ride down the east side of the Maldives. After that, things get complicated, so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
I've set the isochrone (the red line running west-to-east) to the afternoon of the 27th, towards the end of the transition zone into the westerly breeze. What we can see is a pretty narrow Doldrums crossing point - visible because of the northwards bulge of the isochrone around the Predicted Route. This is telling us that there is one sweet spot to cross the Doldrums around 75degE - and if you miss it, then there are big losses to be made.
The next three days is going to be about picking and having the right sail for hitting that sweet spot. It's a little bit like choosing gear cogs and ratios for a bike race. There's only room for so many gear ratios on a bike, and the rules only allow a limited number of sails on a Volvo Open 70. So you can end up on a hill with the wrong gear ratio (but it's not about the bike) for your pedalling tempo, and you can end up on a True Wind Angle (TWA) pointing at the sweet spot, with the wrong sail to go fast in that direction. If that's the case for any of the fleet, they are going to suffer here.
And there's another factor - the crossing point could easily move, more on that tomorrow. But I can't leave it today without pointing you to Green Dragon's Tom Braidwood, giving us a marvellous account of life as bicycle repairman.
The TEN ZULU REPORT (so called because it follows the 10:00 GMT fleet position report, and Zulu is the meteorologist's name for GMT).
by Mark Chisnell
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Norseman Airport, WA
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