Leader Board - Motoring 18:14.07N 25:20.80W
Shaya Moya
Don & Susan Smyth
Sat 27 Nov 2010 06:38
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Leader Board and Motoring
Dear Blog readers. Apologies for the absence of a
blog yesterday, we have had a frustrating 24 hours chasing very little wind
which is backing/veering dramatically and mocking our attempts to sail to any
planned course. We changed the sail configuration several times before nightfall
eventually settling for a goose wing configuration (poled out genoa on starboard
side and boom on port side with a gybe preventer attached). Although
this is a stable and safe configuration it only allows you to run before the
wind, so the helmsman needs to adjust course as the wind changes. We were
aware the wind would veer during the night and we decided that if our course
became greater than 255 degrees we would need to gybe to avoid going too far
west too soon.
In "normal" conditions the ideal route is to sail
south to just below 18 degrees of latitude just North of the Verde's. This would
take you into the top of the band of trade winds which flow from East to
West and carry you across the Atlantic. Unfortunately due to confused
weather in the North Atlantic, particularly a deep low West of the Azores, the
trade belt is being held much further South. We are most likely to
encounter South Westerlies where the trades
would normally be.The lack of narrative at the end of our weather routers report
yesterday, suggests that the actual wind patterns over the next 24 hours are
quite uncertain.
What does this have to do with the leader board I
hear you ask! The leader board is calculated using the yachts distance to the
finish in St Lucia, their average speed towards that waypoint (vector made good
VMG) and then adjusted by the handicap of the yacht. i.e. if a yacht is 2000
nautical miles from St Lucia and has made an average VMG of 10 knots. The Arc
guys would assume it will take this yacht 200 hours to reach the finish. If this
yacht has a handicap of 1.1 then the leader board ranking will place them with
an expected time of 220 hours. This can obviously only assume the yacht is
going to sail directly towards the finish (rhumb line). Therefore, yachts that
have taken a tactical course much further East and South will show very poorly
on the leader board but could reach the trades sooner and finish significantly
better.
Then! just in case you are not already
totally confused we have the motoring factor. Over the last 72 hours we
have motor sailed for 40 odd hours. We will incur a penalty for this which will
not be declared until the finish of the race. The penalty will be
between x 1.0 and 2.0 of all motored hours depending on the total
number of motored hours collectively for the fleet. I suspect that at least 80%
of the fleet will have motored a similar number of hours, you can't do much with
a 40 tonne yacht in 4 knots of wind. However, we also know Sulana, another
Oyster 56 has not switched on their engine at all as they have an ambition to
"Sail" across the Atlantic. They are currently well over 100 miles behind us on
a similar course, on adjusted times at the end, they could still beat us by a
good margin. So the moral of this rather boring blog is - It aint over till the
fat lady sings!
PS there should be a more interesting blog with
pics later in the day. I make no apologies for
errors or omissions in this blog having just finished my watch at 04.00
I've handed the helm to poor .Tony who is trying to sail a course whilst the
wind vane does pirouettes around the top of the mast.
Catch you some time in February at this rate.
First Mate Dave
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