Into the Tasman

Portimão Global Ocean Race frontrunners begin their ascent towards Wellington

On Tuesday morning, the Portimão Global Ocean Race frontrunner, Beluga Racer, flattened her dive southeast through the Indian Ocean riding a corridor of strong southwesterly breeze delivering gusts approaching 50 knots. Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme on the German boat pulled up from their descent at the latitude of the southern tip of South Island, New Zealand, 1,500 miles to the east and, 24 hours later, Felipe Cubillos and José Muñoz on the second placed Chilean Class 40, Desafio Cabo de Hornos, followed suit and shadowed the German duo 36 miles behind Beluga Racer.

In the past three days, Cubillos and Muñoz have fought to decrease this deficit: “The Germans have gained around 17 miles while you were all sleeping,” Cubillos informed the race organisation yesterday. “They now have a 40 mile advantage and it might be that this advantage continues increasing in the short term.” This morning, the distance between the two boats is 49 miles: a ten mile gain by the Chileans in the past 24 hours.
Since closing in on Beluga Racer five days ago as the two boats converged while sailing north of the mandatory ice gate, Desafio Cabo de Hornos has guarded her northern position and is now 150 miles southwest of Tasmania: the gateway to the Tasman Sea and the direct route to the finish line in Wellington, New Zealand. However, light winds are proving frustrating: “This morning we had very little breeze,” Cubillos reported. “These aren’t the conditions that we expected and without the stronger northerly breeze we wanted, we cannot make a good angle towards the south of Tasmania. If you think that this does not hurt to us, it’s a lie….we’re hurting right now.”

The immediately dominant weather system for the two leaders is a high located east of Tasmania that is forecast to move directly into the path of Beluga Racer and Desafio Cabo de Hornos in the next two days. Currently, the Chileans are making 12 knots, two knots faster than the German team, but a depression moving up from the southwest could prove to be crucial to the frontrunners over the weekend. It is certain, however, that the German and Chilean teams are set to deliver a cliff-hanging finish to leg 2, similar to the intense final hours of leg 1 off Cape Town.

Trailing the race leader by 768 miles, Jeremy Salvesen and David Thomson, on Team Mowgli have a different set of issues: “Our main autopilot was damaged in the storm and we have been relying on the back-up system since then,” explains Salvesen. “This system works well to a point, but where it is not so good is downwind with lighter airs and a heavy swell. The pilot was handling things okay and we were keeping a very close eye on it. Suddenly, however, we went into a cr ash gybe - Mowgli had been spun round through the wind by a large wave and the pilot couldn't handle it.”

On New Year’s Day, the British duo reported that the boom on Team Mowgli had sustained damage and cracked, forcing them to reduce sail and lose speed. Since then, their progress has severley compromised with Team Mowgli losing 422 miles on the lead boats in the past week. Further problems with the masthead wind instruments were also discovered: “David spent the best part of an hour at the top of the mast, being swung from side to side, taking the wind instrument off and giving it a good clean and an oil,” continues Salvesen. “There wasn't anything apparently wrong with it, but it now seems to be working much better. Fingers crossed!”

Despite the discovery of a damaged mainsail car during the mast climb and severe chafe to the staysail halyard, Team Mowgli are still averaging 10.5 knots in 15 knot westerly breeze as they continue to hold a heading directly towards the turning point at the southern tip of Tasmania, 900 miles to the east. Solo sailor, Michel Kleinjans and Roaring Forty, rounded Cape Leeuwin yesterd ay and is now at the eastern limit of the Portimão Global Ocean Race ice gate. Since the Belgian yachtsman’s birthday on 5 January, the distance deficit between his Open 40 and Team Mowgli has hardly fluctuated and Roaring Forty trails the British duo by 277 miles.