Volvo Ocean Race: Classic upwind slog

(April 24, 2018; Day 2) – The famed anticyclone is renowned for dominating the South Atlantic and making tricky sailing for Volvo Ocean Race teams heading north or south.

Constantly expanding and contracting, the St Helena High – also known as the South Atlantic High Pressure Cell – is currently centred around 1,300 miles east of the Leg 8 start city Itajai.

However, its influence stretches 1,000 miles in every direction, causing a major navigational problem for the seven Volvo Ocean Race teams.

“It’s the classic upwind slog – and we’ve probably got this for six days,” said Dongfeng’s Daryl Wislang. “We’ve done a pretty good job at the moment actually, everyone else is behind us. I don’t mind it being upwind so long as everyone else is behind us.”

The long-term strategy remains to get east as fast as possible, in search of stronger, more favourable breeze and less current which flows down the coast of Brazil at up to 2 knots.

In order to do that, the teams have had plenty of tacks and sail changes with more in store as they zigzag their way around the St Helena High’s north-western edge.

Not yet to the latitude of Rio de Janeiro, it’s made for a testing first two days along the northerly course to the American yachting mecca of Newport, Rhode Island.

“We’ve had quite a lot of cloud activity,” explained Scallywag crewman Pete Cumming, a new addition to the team for Leg 8. “They’re sucking and blowing, and when you’re on the edge of the clouds the wind does very different things.

“It’s really up and down, and swinging all over the place. You have to just position yourself how you think you’ll get the best out of them.”

Onboard team AkzoNobel, the ever-changing wind speed and direction has been causing havoc with their sail selection. 

“The difficulty is we’re right on the crossover of our sails between the masthead code zero and the J1 jib,” AkzoNobel’s Luke Molloy said.

“We were sailing in and out of the crossover all yesterday afternoon and into the evening. The problem is that if you take the time to do the sail change you need to then consider how much distance you lose versus how much you gain with the new sail.”

With less than 500 miles sailed, the race to Newport is only just warming up.

For crew lists… click here.

Race details – Tracker – Scoreboard – Race route – Facebook – YouTube

Leg 8 – Position Report (19:00 UTC)
1. Dongfeng Race Team (CHN), Charles Caudrelier (FRA), 4644.7 nm DTF
2. Team Brunel (NED), Bouwe Bekking (NED), 4.0 nm DTL
3. MAPFRE (ESP), Xabi Fernández (ESP), 4.6 nm DTL
4. Team AkzoNobel (NED), Simeon Tienpont (NED), 7.1 nm DTL
5. Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (HKG), David Witt (AUS), 11.6 nm DTL
6. Vestas 11th Hour Racing (DEN/USA), Charlie Enright (USA), 12.3 nm DTL
7. Turn the Tide on Plastic (POR), Dee Caffari (GBR), 12.7 nm DTL
DTF – Distance to Finish; DTL – Distance to Lead

COURSE: Starting on April 22, Leg 8 takes the teams from Itajaí, Brazil to Newport, USA. Race organizers choose to estimate the tactical distance for each leg rather than list the actual distance, an unusual decision that’s revealed once the race starts and the tracker lists the actual distance to finish. The organizers say Leg 8 is 5700 nm whereas the actual distance from the tracker is 5027 nm.

2017-18 Edition: Entered Teams – Skippers
• Team AkzoNobel (NED), Simeon Tienpont (NED)
• Dongfeng Race Team (CHN), Charles Caudrelier (FRA)
• MAPFRE (ESP), Xabi Fernández (ESP)
• Vestas 11th Hour Racing (DEN/USA), Charlie Enright (USA)
• Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (HKG), David Witt (AUS)
• Turn the Tide on Plastic (POR), Dee Caffari (GBR)
• Team Brunel (NED), Bouwe Bekking (NED)

Background: Racing the one design Volvo Ocean 65, the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race begins in Alicante, Spain on October 22 2017 with the final finish in The Hague, Netherlands on June 30 2018. In total, the 11-leg race will visit 12 cities in six continents: Alicante, Lisbon, Cape Town, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Auckland, Itajaí, Newport, Cardiff, Gothenburg, and The Hague. A maximum of eight teams will compete.

Source: Volvo Ocean Race