Doldrums dance in Transatlantic Race

(November 30, 2017; Day 6) – Different strategies in tackling the complex weather scenario for the RORC Transatlantic Race have caused a huge spread in the fleet, with boats 800 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, north to south. Ludde Ingvall’s Australian Maxi leads the fleet, having committed on day one to southern routing, and continues to dig further south toward the latitude of Cape Verde to stay in the meat of the easterly trades.

As for the rest of the fleet, they continue to remove themselves from their northern game plan, now taking steps to the south in search of an opening through the doldrums. At the front of that group is Eric de Turckheim’s French Nivelt-Muratet 54 Teasing Machine, estimated to be the overall IRC leader.

Near the rhumb line, a close battle is raging between three German yachts of near-equal size; all of which are youth training vessels. Haspa Hamburg, owned by Hamburgischen Verein Seefahrt (HVS) and skippered by 21-year old Max Gärtner, leads on the water by just two miles from SKWV’s Bank von Bremen skippered by 29-year old Alexander Beilken. Meanwhile, HVS’s second boat in the race, Broader View Hamburg is estimated to lead the trio after IRC time correction. Fifty percent of the crew on the club’s Andrews 56 are between 18 and 22 years and include skipper, Björn Woge’s 19-year old son.

Race details – Tracker – Entrants

The fourth edition of the RORC Transatlantic Race started November 25 at Marina Lanzarote, Canary Islands with a record 23 teams racing 3,000 nm to Grenada, West Indies.

Source: Louay Habib, RORC