Oh wow. The four boats that went north of the Cape Verde Islands have gybed south to converge with the boats that went south, and to my eye it looks like the northerly boats have made a big gain.

The tracker is showing a big tightening in the DTL numbers, but I think it goes further than that.

This is a little tricky to explain to a non-sailor. Basically, the tracker computes its “distance to leader” (DTL) number via a straight measurement to the turning mark at Fernando Island, which is mostly south of them. But the reality is that these boats are tacking downwind, gybing back and forth to maintain an optimum VMG to leeward. That means that really, assuming the lead boats are willing to cross downwind of the boats behind them, the real measurement of who’s ahead or behind should be based on who is the farthest downwind.

By that measurement, just eyeballing the angles in the tracker screenshot above, ADOR and Brunel are already ahead of Dongfeng. Even more exciting for me, SCA fanboy that I’ve become: The women have closed up the gap bigtime. It looks like they’re probably still trailing the fleet, but they’re much closer than they were before.

(I keep telling myself I need to back off on the VOR posts. Most of the people who follow me presumably aren’t sailors, and probably aren’t terribly interested in all this stuff. But then I just get more excited by each new development.

I’m trying to remember to tag it all #vor so you can block it with Tumblr savior or Xkit. If you object to all the sailing content lately, please feel free to send me an ask. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to rein myself in. But at least I’ll have a data point about the pain I’m inflicting. And in the meantime, thank you for your patience with my latest obsession.)

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Sophie Ciszek appreciation post

You meet certain kinds of people when you race sailboats offshore. One kind in particular you tend to meet at the front of the boat.

Working the bow is a key specialty. An offshore racing sailboat is designed to be run from the cockpit; that’s where the “afterguard” hangs out, the skipper, helmsperson, sheet trimmers and grinders. The cockpit is a relatively benign environment, designed to protect its occupants from the forces around them.

The areas in front of the mast and above the deck are a different story. The motions are violent. It’s a zone of whipping lines and flapping sails, and in rougher conditions of waves that sweep the deck without warning, doing their best to carry any loose items — including humans — over the side. It’s a dangerous, unforgiving place.

But you need people willing to go there, up the mast or out on the bow, in the middle of the night, in storms, when things are breaking and out of control. And not just willing to go there. Excited to go there. To take that risk. To run forward without hesitation, pitting their frail human body against the forces of chaos.

That’s what a good bow person does. I’ve known a few of them in my life. When I was growing up racing offshore they were the sailors I looked up to the most. They were my heroes.

Sophie Ciszek is one of them, and I’m glad she’s on the boat. When the crew of SCA gets into trouble, she’s the one who’s going to get them out of it.

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An interesting dynamic is playing out as the VOR fleet, now solidly in the northeast trade winds and heading rapidly towards Brazil, negotiates the Cape Verde Islands. The fleet is farther south than in a typical VOR (I think?), due to the weather system that pushed the trades south and had the boats fighting through mostly light winds for the past week. So now they have the option of heading north of the Cape Verde Islands, as in a typical VOR, or heading through one of the passages that separate the islands.

Most of the racers appear to be heading north, either leaving all the islands to port or going through one of the passages between São Vicente and São Nicolau. But Dongfeng, having lost the lead earlier due to their broken rudder, have now regained the lead (at least per the Virtual Eye tracker, which I believe is measuring distance to the turning mark off Brazil) by heading farther south, apparently in anticipation of going through the passage between São Nicolau and Sal.

It will be cool to see if it pays off. The islands are fairly mountainous; like Hawaii, they’re a volcanic archipelago that has grown up as continental plates drift over an undersea hotspot. I’m assuming the boats going north want to avoid slowing down in the wind shadow on the islands’ downwind side. (It could also be that they’re planning to gybe and follow Dongfeng’s more southerly route.) But the Dongfeng team apparently is aiming to pass through the islands, counting on the shorter distance traveled to make up for any loss of wind.

Astern, it looks like SCA is following the northern group of boats. But if the update schedule allows them to see the developing situation in enough detail, and if the timing works out that Dongfeng’s strategy is clearly working, SCA would have the option of using the same strategy. And vice versa: If Dongfeng’s strategy doesn’t work out, SCA might have enough time to see that and avoid following them. It’s one of the (few) benefits of being so far behind: SCA can let the leaders test the various routes, then follow the one that works best.

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majagray:

#Repost from @team_sca Justine Mettraux and Abby Ehler help tack a sail over the combing. More pictures in our website! #goteamsca #weareteamsca #teamsca #weallsupportyou #sailing @volvooceanrace

I really like this photo. As of now (1540 UTC, October 18), Team SCA is at the back of the fleet , 71nm behind Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzaam, which took over from Dongfeng when the latter ran into something at 0210 UTC and broke their port rudder, requiring a 2-hour stop to replace it with a spare.

These women have been battling the elements for a week nonstop, and you can see it. They can’t expect a break until they reach Cape Town in early November. And now they have the additional burden of trying to stay focused without nearby competitors to provide incentive.

Every racing sailor has been there. It’s a challenge. But you have to stay positive.

On-board reporter (OBR) Corinna Halloran wrote in the boat’s latest blog post:

At the moment, our goal is to get through our first rough patch so that we do catch back up. Sam and Libby sit at the navigation station for hours plotting a plan that will get us back in the ring as soon as possible. For hours they watch the weather systems, our boats, and the potential trackers, and then make their decision based on all the controllable factors.

However, all of their hard work and focus still doesn’t help the expected sting and disappointment of receiving the next position report (aka sked). There’s an element of hope that maybe, just maybe, for the last six hours some miracle did happen. Except miracles don’t happen every day and the two girls braced themselves for the sting a few times yesterday. Nonetheless, as expected, both Sam and Libby receive the news with grace and devise the next plan of attack.

By no means are we admitting any defeat. As one fan said: the proverbial “Fat Lady” is not singing, and, come to think of it, she is not even close to being at the performance theatre. We have over 5,500 miles to sail past them. We keep reminding ourselves: this is not the sprint races we are used to. As a team we have not raced against other boats for longer than a week— we need to remember that this is not ‘game over’ for us.

There’s a boat full of tough, determined, focused women right now who are hungry to sail fast and hard, using every single second to perform at 101%, and get ourselves back with the rest of the fleet—and nothing is going to stop us until we do.

Good for them.

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spiritofsailing:

VO 65 “Team SCA”

You know; just messing around in boats. No big deal.

Photo by Rick Tomlinson. It looks like it’s one of the early publicity photos taken before the full team was assembled.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/11DYZ60.

Last night was about pounding into 30-knot headwinds; tonight has been about fighting light and variable winds off the African coast. It’s great fun to run the little slider forward and back in the tracker app, watching 12 hours of strategy play out in a few seconds. I especially like it when the wind dies and the boats start spinning like whirligig beetles. Much more fun in the app than in real life, I’m sure.

Team SCA has slipped toward the back of the (still tightly clumped) pack. All the boats are fighting their way toward the Canary Islands, where they’ll hopefully be able to pick up the northeast trade winds and take off for Brazil.

I have some frustrations with the tracker app. As an old-school navigator I find myself wishing I could view the positions superimposed on an actual chart, or at least have a distance scale, rather than needing to jump through hoops to find out how much distance separates the competitors.

And there’s the occasional glitch like the one shown above, when five boats headed into the beach on starboard, getting right up to the breakers (I assume) before tacking out again. Except for Team SCA, which continued well inland before making their tack.

I assumed it was just a misplotted shoreline in the tracker app, but Google Earth confirms that no, the position reported in the app really was 1,000 feet into the Moroccan desert. So I guess it’s a calibration issue, or something, in the reported position itself?

Or else the ladies have figured out how to make their boat literally fly.

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Two kinds of people. :-)

Source

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Haha. Nice.

The boats spent most of today sailing close-hauled into the Atlantic on port tack, trying to get to the trade winds, which apparently are farther offshore than is typical for this time of year. SCA sailed a lower course that took them farther to the north, while the bulk of the fleet sailed higher, that is, closer to the wind (and to the direction they ultimately need to go). Then the fleet sailed into a big header around 2000 UTC and tacked onto starboard, at which point Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (ADOR) took the lead, and SCA dropped to 5th. 

In the five hours since then, though, SCA has sailed really well, and as of the 0040 UTC update they’re in 3rd place, only 1 mile behind ADOR.

I watched a video today that Leighton O’Connor posted a few days ago after he went on a practice sail with SCA.  In the description for the video he wrote:

You can tell that this crew has been training together for a long time and for many days, They are well oiled very quiet quick team. I don’t think I have ever been on such a quiet boat, I think they can read each other’s minds. I guess that what happens when you log over 400 days and 25,000 practice miles together.

The more I learn about the preparation that Team SCA has done, the more impressed I am. They were one of the earliest teams to organize for this event, and have been working on physical conditioning, sailing together, and racing offshore, first in the former Puma, the boat that finished second in the last VOR, and then in the first of the new VOR 65s to be launched.

I think that preparation is showing in the way they’ve been racing.

Reposted from http://ift.tt/1sA0Se2.

Carolijn Brouwer of Team SCA with her three-year-old son, Kyle, before the start of Leg 1 in Alicante, Spain. [x]

Something you come across in news coverage of the VOR are the teary goodbyes before each leg and the joyous reunions after. The Volvo is a lengthy, dangerous undertaking, and the emotions on display before and after each leg are real.

There have been five fatalities at sea during the previous 11 races. Here’s hoping everyone comes home safe from this one.

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Day 2 – Only one day in – Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race:

From Corinna Halloran aboard Team SCA:

Around 9pmUTC, the nail biting began. Libby and Sam sat around the navigation computer staring at the screen and the rest of the fleet. “Everyone except us are going the southerly route through the Straits, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why,” Libby said. “We want to stay with the fleet but we also want to stick with our plan—and our plan has us sailing North.” Despite the nerves to split from the fleet, we stayed the course and sailed on without knowing if our strategy would pay off or not. At 12:00amUTC we bobbed and weaved our way through container ships anchored in Gibraltar, without a single sailboat to be seen. Were we ahead or behind?! Ahead or behind!?

Then, the clock struck 01:15am UTC and Libby downloaded the “scheds” (the schedule, with all of the boat’s locations—only available every 6 hours). Her sigh was audible around the boat. The team collectively hooted and hollered for joy as Libby told us we were 21 nautical miles ahead of the fleet! Our risk paid off big time and we are now officially sailing in the Atlantic Ocean!

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