Easing winds allow fleet to make sail repairs - Race News

Easing winds allow fleet to make sail repairs

28 September 2007

With the winds dropping the daily runs have been reduced from 240 nautical miles to fewer than 160 nautical miles as the fleet scramble to try to position themselves in the best location to maximise the gain from the weather patterns. The most recent poll at 0600 GMT showed westernaustralia2011.com had just edged ahead of Hull & Humber. The positions are updated every six hours on www.clipperroundtheworld.com.

Race Director Joff Bailey comments, “As we said yesterday, the wind over the region that the fleet is sailing in is changing over the next 12 hours from fresh northerly winds to lighter westerlies and then moderate south westerlies by Saturday lunchtime. This will really throw the cat among the pigeons as the tactical decisions made two days ago start to take effect. Those boats that have made more distance to the west may benefit more than those further south. Watch out over the weekend as the positions swap around. Once they’re through this latest depression the fleet should start to benefit from the north easterly trade winds which will take them all the way down to the ITCZ – the Doldrums.

“Following the frantic race out of the Bay of Biscay, around Cape Finisterre along the Portuguese coast conditions will have calmed down considerably and time can now be spent doing repairs and maintenance on board. One of the boats reports spending more than 100 hours repairing a sail and Hull & Humber has confirmed that their spinnaker and anti-wrap net are both back up and working after their dramatic spinnaker wrap.”

This is confirmed by Fiona Wright in her blog from Hull & Humber. “Excellent night watch, no problems this time round, everything went well whilst we poled out a head sail. Now with the heavy weight spinnaker patched up and ready to go we launched her once again just after breakfast, now storming along, with great speed and pride. Sam went up the mast again, to go fix the Windex, and Fred went up to do a rig check, and no problems where found. After all what we have been through in the last couple of days, the crew moral is still fantastic and we are all taking it in turns to learn to helm, with Danny’s tuition.”

Liza Moran on Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper reports, “The downwind sailing with the kite flying has provided many a cheesy grin or two and chuckles from the helm as we surf down the high, rolling Atlantic waves, with Gorgeous Gordon hitting an all time high of 16 knots (so far!) Woo hoo. After a bit of crazy night of sail changes, poles up and down, it left us with a bit of a muddle, with wrapped halyards etc. I think it gave us all a bit of a wake up call that we need to give 100 per cent all of the time if we are to keep up the standards.”

On Liverpool 08 they are coming to the same conclusion. “The vision of the spinnaker silhouetted by the full-moon and licking the sky like an enormous white flame could have been described as spectacular if it hadn’t have been so devastating,” writes Ian Tomlinson. “Each of us drew a heavy sigh as we saw one of the most important tools to winning this race flap and rip through the sky with a deafening scream.”

Meanwhile on Qingdao things have settled down a little. “We have also recovered well from our broach of two nights ago which, although dramatic at the time, thankfully left our kite intact. Like falling off a bike and following a reassuring breakfast of porridge, our spinnaker was soon flying again and we are now making good daily runs,” writes Chris Jones.