Seeking a passage to India

Thursday 13 November 2008 14:30

By Mark Chisnell

If Leg 1 was the old friend that you don’t initially recognise, then Leg 2 is the glamorous, dark-eyed stranger casting seductive gazes in your direction at a party. Let me introduce you, as we’re all about to get to know each other a little better ...

Back in the day, when Leg 2 was a rip-roaring, padlock-the-halyards-to-the-cleats, last-one-to-Freo’s-a-sissy sort of affair, there was only one way out of Cape Town – south. Go south, wait till it’s blowing 40 knots (but in the Volvo Open 70, 25 knots is plenty) and then turn left. Simple to say, not so simple to do - sailing at right angles to where you want to go for days on end.

Race veteran, Marcel van Trieste once admitted (hopefully, it’s long enough ago that the Navigators Union will allow me to make this revelation without legal action), that he had resorted to changing the compass calibration.

It had then appeared to those on deck that they were going south-east, when they were actually going west of south, so counter-intuitive were his instructions to the watch captains.

But that was then, and this is now - we’ve already seen the fleet do exactly this type of thing in Leg 1, when they sailed south from Fernando de Noronha until they hooked into the low pressure and cold front that brought the leaders to Cape Town.

The $64 question for this new-look Leg 2 is whether or not the old rule will hold true. After all, you don’t want to go east now, but north-east - so surely, sailing south from Africa in search of breeze is madness?

At the very least, it’s going to be hard to convince the bloke on the wheel that he needs to point the boat in almost completely the opposite direction to the destination. But, like Captain Blyth and HMS Bounty, whose expedition to gather breadfruit from Tahiti was forced to go the long way round via Australia (after Blyth failed to round Cape Horn east to west against the prevailing winds and currents), it may just make sense.

And the reason is the scoring gate at longitude 58degE. This is a straightforward race east, just like the old days – as long as you cross that meridian between 20degS and Antarctica, you can be anywhere to pick up the points. Now, there are only half as many points available at the gate, in comparison to the finish, but ... a win at the scoring gate followed by a last into Cochin is only half a point worse than fifth place in both.

One of the nastiest pieces of ocean on the planet

So will we see the kind of tactics that so enliven the Tour de France – where breakaway groups go hard for the green jersey sprint, or the mountain points, while others stay with the peloton and their eyes on the overall prize?

There is one other advantage to going south to find a low pressure system and then travelling east with it – and it’s called the Agulhas Current. This starts at somewhere around 27degS and flows down the east coast of Africa, following the continental shelf, until it spills out into the south-east Atlantic.

And there, this warm water current meets the cold water and the east-bound storm systems of the Southern Ocean. Most notoriously, they come together off Cape Agulhas, which overlooks the Agulhas Bank, the final projection of shallow continental shelf into deep water.

This combination of inbound storm systems and outbound current, of warm water and cold water, of big waves and shallow ground, creates one of the nastiest pieces of ocean on the planet. And if you want to go from Cape Town to Cochin on the direct route, you’ve got to go across the Agulhas Bank, and battle the current north. Whereas dipping south from the Cape of Good Hope, down into the Southern Ocean and then going east before you turn north, means dodging the whole sorry mess.

The trick with this strategy is finding the exit – let’s say you get a ride on a low pressure system, smoke east for 2000 miles in a blaze of spume and glory, then score maximum points at the gate. The problem now is finding the off-ramp for Cochin - transiting from the westerly storm track and dodging around the sub-tropical high to get into the trade winds.

This should sound familiar – and yes, Leg 2 is effectively the second part of Leg 1, but in reverse. The reason is that the earth’s climate features distinct bands, lying horizontally and looping the globe, running out from the Equator to the Poles in a mirror image. As we’ve already seen, when racing from north to south, the fleet are constantly crossing from one band of climate to another, and in this respect, Leg 2 will be no different to Leg 1 - the trick is finding the right entry and exit points for each transition.

At this time of year, the Indian Ocean’s equivalent of the South Atlantic High should be situated a long way east, but nevertheless, if the fleet go too far that way, they will run smack into it.

And that will be slow – there’s no wind in the centre of a high pressure system. So this part of the leg will be all about a smooth transition from the westerly’s into the south-east trade winds, via the northerlies that will mark the western edge of the high pressure ridge – bearing in mind that northerlies mean sailing upwind.

By the time they get to the latitude of Mauritius, the fleet should find themselves in the trade winds, blowing at a decent strength. The next thousand miles or so, going north in the trades, will be the most straight-forward part of the leg.

No more homespun, common-sense rules of thumb

But by the time the fleet get as far north as the Chagos Islands, things will be getting more complicated. The wind will slowly be backing (rotating anti-clockwise) to north of east, and starting to fade in strength. Then it will be into the Doldrums, and predominantly light air all the way north to Cochin.

Unlike the Atlantic, where we saw the well established pedestrian crossing through the Doldrums (at 30degW) come good once again for the Green Dragon, there is no such history for this part of the world. Since the last sailboats to regularly go this way (with an eye on the clock) were square riggers, there is no encyclopaedia of racing knowledge to fall back on when the GRIB files are all different and the weather forecast less useful than an ashtray on a motor bike. So, no more homespun, common-sense rules of thumb from me for a while, either.

If that wasn’t bad enough (the weather, not the lack of homespun homilies) we should remember that it won’t just be light air in the Doldrums – there will be clouds and thunderstorms, and all the usual risks of getting caught out with lots of sail area up in a 40 knot squall. The Indian Ocean is the world’s warmest, and that means plenty of energy to drive the convection cycle of the thunderstorms.

But in theory, the global GRIB files that track long term weather patterns predict mostly light westerlies, if they predict anything, until the Maldives. At this point, the fleet will have to pick one side of the islands or the other (assuming that they are still there).

According to former race navigator and weather routeur, Adrienne Cahalan, early December sees a transition in this part of the world from light westerly to easterly winds, with easterlies being more likely to the east of the islands.

It will be a lot faster to sail the course to Cochin (north-northeast) in a light easterly, than a light westerly, so east of the islands might be the better bet. After that, India will be looming large on the horizon, with the promise of land effects, such as sea breezes, that will help them finish the final miles.

So, who’s going to come good on Leg 2? It looks like it will be dominated by two sorts of sailing: upwind and close reaching in light air; and medium to heavy air running and broad reaching. That’s an interesting mix, when in Team Telefonica we appear to have boats that excel in the former, but have a weak spot in the latter – judging by what we’ve seen so far. So I’d be surprised if Telefonica Blue and Black make much of a showing at the scoring gate, but expect a late charge for the podium in Cochin from Bouwe Bekking and his mates.

And here’s a final factoid for you – back in 2005-06, Leg 2 became the first all-male affair for 32 years. Three years later, and there isn’t a single woman on the crew lists for the second leg running – that’s probably telling us something about the importance of sheer physical strength on these boats.