Last week at this time, Ericsson 3 had set itself up to reap some big rewards from an oddly positioned low pressure system, which was spinning up to the north of the first scoring gate. By tacking away from the fleet after the gate and heading north, despite all the historical imperatives that screamed, ‘go south’, navigator Aksel Magdahl stole a march on the competition and saw his team into the lead.
It was an advantaged position that would translate into a lead as big as 280 miles over the second placed boat by the middle of the week.
But that was then; this is now. Today it’s Green Dragon to the north, finding a similarly ‘out-of-place’ low pressure system, and the Irish-Chinese team is making good gains. Unfortunately for Ericsson 3, the Dragons aren’t the only ones up there. Both Ericsson 4 and PUMA are also positioned closer to the weather system and are closing the gap with the leader quickly.
As a result, Magdahl and skipper Magnus Olsson made the difficult decision to turn north last night, to try and close down the separation with their pursuers. It resulted in several hours of sailing northeast, and every mile north was taking them away from Cape Horn to the south, hence the bleeding of miles on the leaderboard.
“It seems like the boats behind us will get a more favourable path into and through the low, and it will be really tight around the Cape Horn,” wrote Gustav Morin from Ericsson 3 this morning. “Right now we are going really slow and Aksel anticipated a couple of hours ago that we may lose 100 miles of our 150 mile lead in the coming 12 hours.”
So far, they’ve lost 106 miles to second-placed Ericsson 4 over the past 24 hours. The losses to fourth-placed Green Dragon are even more dramatic at 179 miles since this time yesterday. But by the 13:00 GMT position report, Ericsson 3 was able to turn its bow down from the north again, more in line with the competition, although the team remains over miles south of their stablemates on Ericsson 4; a concern given the weather system will come from the north.
“The ridge has made Ericsson 3 sail a more northerly route to trade their large lead into a smaller one, but to get up on the same piece of ocean as ourselves and PUMA,” was the way Guy Satler, media man on Ericsson 4, interpreted the tactics of the past 18 hours or so. ”
People say that everyday you should learn and experience something new to keep life exciting and fresh – ‘a first’ if you like. Well, today I definitely had such an experience due to the conditions we are having out here on Ericsson 4. But surprisingly enough it had nothing to do with the light air ridge that is halting us all towards the front of the pack, the ridge which has made Ericsson 3 sail a more northerly route to trade their large lead into a smaller one but to get on the same piece of ocean as ourselves and Puma.
This ridge will certainly be giving the Nordics neck ache as they keep looking over their shoulder. Their brave and successful move could end fruitless if they don’t get to the wind first. All of the first three boats are just lining up for a speed test off the coast of Chile
We have had – at times – as little as 2 knots of wind and down at 48 south! Very surprising and not exactly the picture in the mind when the mighty southern ocean is talked about. The roaring forties?
The code zero has been up for a fair few hours which for our code zero is definitely borrowed time due to a huge area of delamination. We did not expect to see this sail again until a few days out of Rio!
The boys have worked hard in staking the boat for no wind – then restacking the boat for 10kts as the occasional puff comes in, before moving it all back once more as the breeze drops once more.
The day was mainly sunny and I can feel a little burn on the face. It’s amazing as it was very cold today, but the strength of the sun in the southern hemisphere is very strong. This made for a great drying day as we opened hatches and let the condensation disappear. The one casualty was Tony’s (Tony Mutter/NZL) water proof balaclava which was drying happily on deck one moment and had vanished the next – no one is sure if someone is playing a cruel trick on him.
We had a couple of fly-bys by an albatross today and with this little wind its flight didn’t look as effortless as it usually does – it’s very rare to see an albatross flap its wings!”
“We are still very much in the Southern Ocean and have a few tough days ahead of us after we intersect with the storm front that we expect to ride to the Horn and beyond,” wrote Rick Deppe from on board il Mostro this morning. “It sounds like once again we will be in a fist fight with the Ericsson boats for some points at the Cape Horn scoring gate. But all said the last two days have been a great chance to rejuvenate and ‘find the force’ that we’ll need to make the final push around the corner and on to the finish.”
Telefonica Blue is also beginning to pour on the speed, with a strong northwesterly wind allowing Bouwe Bekking’s crew to make 18 knots boat speed. Still over 700 miles back, and handicapped by their damaged rigging, the boys in blue haven’t given up on getting back into the thick of things. But the focus now is Cape Horn, and the final push for the scoring gate.