Still too close to call. Dongfeng’s sailing about a knot faster than MAPFRE and Brunel.
A couple of side plots:
Brunel, behind MAPFRE, gybed away to the south a few minutes ago. Presumably that looks like a slightly slower course, but when you’re behind with the finish approaching you have to take chances. MAPFRE gybed a few minutes later to cover. Covering makes sense, but there’s a potential downside: If they fool around too much with Brunel it increases the risk that Dongfeng will pass them both for the win.
At the back of the fleet another cool story is playing out. TTToP (blue tracker symbol) and Scallywag (gray tracker symbol) are close together at the bottom of the overall standings. Everyone on TTToP has been saying the last few legs that their goal is to get out of last place by passing Scallywag in the overall standings. But to do that they not only have to beat them; they have to finish with at least one boat between them.
I can’t say for sure, but it looks like Vestas might be that boat. Not only is there a nail-biter at the front of the fleet, there’s a secondary nail-biter at the back. And it’s all going to play out over the next few hours.
MAPFRE has retaken the lead in the western group, which is now heading in toward shore. Brunel is less then a mile behind them, with the no-longer-in-the-running (in terms of overall standings) AkzoNobel in between.
Dongfeng is approaching from the north, roughly 2 miles behind MAPFRE in terms of the distance they’ll need to sail to the finish, but with a faster angle such that they’re (right now) sailing about 3 knots faster. So they’re catching up, but we’ll just have to wait to see if they’ll have enough time to catch them.
I’d planned a long birdwatching outing this morning, but I’m postponing to watch the race finish instead. 😜
I only follow this through your posts but now I am very curious how it will play out!
Me too!
MAPFRE has re-taken the lead in the western group; Brunel is less than a mile behind them (with the no-longer-in-the-running-for-the-overall-win AkzoNobel in between). Dongfeng is chugging down the coast with about 2 miles more to sail to the finish, though they’re also sailing about 3 knots faster over the bottom, with part of that being because they’re at a faster sailing angle and the other part because they’re closer to shore with less adverse current.
I still have no idea who’s going to win. But I’ve cancelled my birdwatching plans for the morning. 😜
Brunel is still narrowly leading MAPFRE in the western group; Dongfeng and the inshore group are losing ground. But that was expected; they knew they’d be sailing a slower angle for a while. Their hope is that the inshore route will pay off at the very end, when the western group has to fight their way in through light winds.
The whole race is totally going to come down to the last few miles.
Sunrise on the North Sea. Brunel has taken a tiny lead over MAPFRE in the western group; Dongfeng is sailing 5 miles off the Dutch coast in the east.
Seven teams have covered 45,000 miles in nine months of racing. There has been a collision and sinking, a dismasting, and, tragically, two deaths.
I feel like I’ve come to know the sailors, watching and annotating 1,331 on-board videos (and counting). To me they embody the best part of what it means to be human. I’m proud of all of them, and I can’t wait to see who wins.
All the teams have talked in the latest videos about how much this leg has been like a three-day in-port race, with constant maneuvers and hardly any sleep for anyone. It must be quite an emotional ride on board right now. And big conditions: The live helicopter shots of them surfing at 25 knots down the Danish coast in the past few hours were amazing.
Win or lose, they are going to be exhausted when they finish tomorrow.
Ooh, split developing with the upcoming exclusion zones. Dongfeng appears to be taking the inshore route, Brunel is going outside, and it looks like MAPFRE has decided to go outside with Brunel.
In the on-board interview they did an hour ago with Libby on Scallywag it sounded like she was saying the inshore route was strongly favored. With Brunel, given that they were behind, taking the less-favored option makes sense; might as well risk it at this point. But for MAPFRE, going outside seems like more of a high-stakes gamble. They were leading Dongfeng (though just barely). But going outside with Brunel means conceding the race if the in-shore route really is better. So Joan and Xabi must believe the outside route really is the way to go.
Charles and Pascal either just won this edition of the race, or just put themselves in third. And with nearly 100 miles of separation zone and no way to get back across it, we might find out well before the finish which it is.
@a-solitary-sea-rover: You can tell your mom her team is absolutely in this. Can’t wait to see who pulls it out in the next leg!
Oh, she knows!
Way to keep Mom in the loop. 🙂
Honestly, this is one of those things that happens every so often in sports that if you put it in a movie would be criticized as unbelievable. Ten legs over nine months around the ENTIRE WORLD, and now because of some incredibly badass sailing and a pass in the last few miles the top three teams are going into the final leg tied on points. They’re far enough ahead of the rest of the fleet that none of the others can threaten them, so the final result will be determined by whatever order those three boats finish in.
Any of them can win. MAPFRE, who started incredibly strong and are still right there. Dongfeng, who have sailed so consistently well that even though they haven’t won a leg they would still have a big overall lead if it weren’t for the wind gods destroying them coming into Newport. And Brunel, who started off doing relatively poorly but have come alive at the right time.
Leg 11 starts a week from today, and I have no idea who’s going to win. 😀
Today an out-of-the-area birder reported a juvenile Mississippi Kite along Alisal Road south of Solvang (fun fact: pretty much the same place Sean and Sinéad went for their Sundance retreat a few months ago). Mississippi Kites have only been documented three previous times in Santa Barbara County, and the mood among local obsessives was cautious/pessimistic.
Mark and Joan took off right away. They bird all the time (in fact were out birding already). Mark is #1 in eBird for Santa Barbara County for the year; the closest I’ve been able to get is 9 birds behind him. Joan doesn’t do eBird, I don’t think, but if she did I suspect she’d be ahead of me too.
I didn’t go after it. It was a work day, and though my hours are pretty flexible, taking an hour to drive to Alisal Road and an hour and a half to drive home (b/c of Santa Barbara’s mini rush hour) plus whatever time was spent in between looking for the bird would mean a lot of work time to make up. The fact that the bird had been reported once didn’t mean it would be easy to refind; rarities often keep moving.
Except Joan refound the bird. So I grabbed my binoculars and went.
I ended up spending about two hours walking the road looking across the golf course toward where the bird had been seen last. At that point, hot and getting hungry, I gave up, said goodbye to the birders who’d been there searching with me, and headed home.
Shortly after arriving, as I was about to eat dinner, the group chat came to life again: Conor and Julie (who were on the Big Pine Mountain Survey with me last weekend) had arrived shortly after I left, and Julie had refound the bird.
Sigh. I didn’t drive back. But I’ve set my alarm for 4 a.m.
Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) – photo by Stephen Kolbe
With any luck, by this time tomorrow I’ll be headed to the Cuyama Valley to see if any of this bird’s smaller cousins (Lesser Nighthawks) are willing to go on my county year list. Wish me luck!
Happy #Flyday everyone!! Saturday is Global Big Day!! I hope we have as much luck as we did last weekend with this GORGEOUS Hooded Warbler! Let’s GOOOO! #hoodedwarbler #warbler #lucky #lifer #globalbigday #letsgo #birdwatching #nycaudubon #nycnature #nycparks #nycbirds #bird #birding #brooklynbirding #brooklyn #greenwoodcemetery #floweringtree #spring #migration #urbanbirding #urbanwildlife #nycwildlife #audubon #wildnyc #myfavoriteseason (at Green-Wood Cemetery)
#220. I got tired of trying and failing to see Horned Larks in the Santa Ynez Valley, so I said screw it; I’m going to Cuyama, the wide-expanses cattle-grazing valley in the northeast corner of Santa Barbara County. Set the alarm for 4 a.m., got to Cottonwood Canyon Road just as it was getting light, and boom! First birds I saw were a pair of Horned Larks that flitted up to check me out (as some curious cows were already).
