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An excellent start for our two skippers

november 10 2009

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Every other day, Philippe Legros will give us an appraisal of the route taken by Roland and Jean-Luc for this Transat Jacques Vabre. As a member of Veolia Environnement’s crew for the recent Istanbul Europa Race, Philippe Legros knows the boat well. This mariner, who hails from Brest, is a talented competitor in his own right, having twice been Imoca World Champion as a crew member of Sill in 2001 and 2002, as well as winner in 2005 of the Round Britain race aboard Sill and Veolia. He has won his spurs sailing with some of the biggest names in the sport. Known as a clever tactician and sail designer aboard Veolia Environnement, Philippe will be giving us the benefit of his informed insights.

Rewind back to the start: setting off under a spinnaker, stiffening winds overnight from Sunday to Monday and reaching (wind from the side). The boats accelerated to some impressive speeds clocking averages above 20 knots sometimes. All as predicted.
Then passage through a ridge of low pressure (zone without any wind) as they exited the English Channel, where the northerly option paid off less well than expected. Thereafter things improved with a first low pressure or passage of a ridge (wind shift from sou’westerly to nor’westerly) that favored those on the northerly route.
It was physically tough and exhausting given the succession of different weather patterns in such a brief time span.
What now? The start was tough, but it’s only going to get tougher. The weather chart below (for tomorrow 0600 UTC) shows the boat’s position in gray, in the southeast of a vast low-pressure system. The lines on the map are isobars (lines linking points of equal atmospheric pressure). Basically, the more lines and the closer they are, the stronger the wind. Jean-Luc and Bilou, who have access to these maps onboard, will certainly be pouring over them in detail. The second gray point, further down, is Foncia, which opted to move out of the way of this storm.

Tomorrow morning, Veolia Environnement will be in high gusting winds. The following image shows the boat’s estimated position at 9:00 am on Wednesday. They will be close hauled, sailing against the wind and the swell, in the south of the low-pressure system. The wind will be from the west at 35 knots (65 km/hr). This means gusts could be as strong as 45 to 50 knots (80 km/hr).

However, you also need to know that these forecasts are generated by computer models that are not 100% reliable. Who’ll forget the carnage of the 2002 Route du Rhum as the boats crossed the Bay of Biscay, because the meteorologists had failed to predict the formation of second, extremely violent, low pressure system in the wake of the first. Caution needs to be exercised.
Finally, there’ll be the sea to deal with as well, with a six-meter swell predicted (purple zones on the map).