Calais Round Britain Race - Day 5

Tactics and strategy on the Shetland sprint

• The original fleet of 11 Imoca monohulls are set to round the beautiful Shetland archipelago and the top of the course in this Calais Round Britain Race from tomorrow afternoon.
• Jeremie Beyou (Delta Dore) has powered up through the fleet into fourth as expected, bridging the gap between the leaders and chasers.
• Vincent Riou continues to lead but his position of control is in threat tonight following a 3 way split of the fleet behind, with inshore, central and offshore options opening up the field of play
• Tactics and strategy are the watchwords of the night, British skippers Jonny Malbon, Sam Davies and Dee Caffari still with everything to play for.

Hanging onto a 15.2 mile lead on the fleet in the Calais Round Britain Race tonight, the happy preparateur aboard Vincent Riou’s new prototype PRB, Eric Carret is relishing the racing off the highlands and islands of NW Scotland. “ All is well. We haven’t broken anything and everything’s working fine. I’d hoped the boat might be a bit more comfortable though! Today, things are going well and even the packet Chinese rice was good! Right now we are close-hauled in 15 to 20 knots of breeze but the wind is steadier. Yesterday there was a lot of fog, but this morning, we were able to see the sunrise. We’re not planning to change tack any time soon; we'll be on starboard tack for the foreseeable future. We opened up our lead a little last night but now everyone's pretty spread out across the water. It's difficult to control our competitors and we're having to keep an eye on Temenos to the left and to VM Matériaux to the right. We’ll have to watch the ranking to get a better idea of what is happening .” Interestingly there was a hint of nervousness in his voice at the lunch time radio session today and we weren’t able to get through to 3rd placed Swiss sailor Dominique Wavre (Temenos) for his view of the situation on the same trajectory just 16.1miles behind.

Inshore of PRB's central option preparateur, Fred Berra, on 2nd placed VM Materiaux sounded fairly optimistic about their position, but only time will tell if theirs was the right move. “ We had quite a bit of work on last night tacking because the routing suggested we needed to be to windward of the fleet. Right now we have an E’ly wind of 15 knots and sun after a foggy day yesterday. We’ve lost a bit of ground on PRB but that’s only temporary. You barely have darkness up here, which feels really funny. We have moderate seas with a little chop and it’s nice in the sun but freezing at night so we're dressed in fleeces, gloves and hats. Our ETA for Shetland is around 1500 hours tomorrow".

Back at the front of the fleet for the past 24 hours after powering up through the fleet to take by far the most offshore option of the leaders, Jérémie Beyou gave us an analysis of the current weather situation. Like the rest of the fleet he sees the outlook as very variable. " We're under the influence of a ridge of high pressure situated to the North of Shetland. The further right you are on the race zone, the more the wind clocks round to the right, and if you are on the left hand side, the wind backs to the left! We don’t know quite what the paying option is and we hesitated as to whether to go the same way as Artemis or not before going further offshore as she’s a great boat and an excellent reference in these conditions. We'll make the most of the good conditions for a few hours but we'll have to shift back over onto the course at some point. In any case it’s great to be back in the match. Three days ago were 177 miles behind the leader ”!

Still doing an excellent job hanging onto fifth place today, Artemis Ocean Racing saw the prototype Delta Dore slip past them yesterday. “ Conditions were such yesterday that we were just in the mid range of our performance yesterday, unable to put up our genoa because it was just that little bit too light for our sail wardrobe. Delta Dore came flying up yesterday but they were so much more powerful they just went straight through us. That’s life though and we’re an older generation boat too. Good on them! They’re smoking up to the leaders now. We’ll just keep chugging along till we get the wind shift!”

In 9th Miranda Merron on Roxy was more than happy to be down below in the warm, trying to get her head round the future strategies and tactics at her chart table and was understandably cagey about the girls’ offshore plans. " It's cold outside so it's not so bad being down here in the snug. The fleet has split into 2 or 3 branches and we'll have to wait and see which is the paying option. We're continuing northwards at the moment. Akena Verandas (navigated by British sailor Chris Tibbs) is downwind of us and we can see them clearly. It feels like we've been heading upwind for some time but that's part of our strategy."

Bringing up the rear of the fleet one of the older generation boats, Aviva, has lost some ground over the past 24 hours following their inshore option but Liz Wardley from Papua New Guinea, 4th in the Trophy BPE Figaro race and experienced Volvo sailor, remained optimistic. " We tacked away from the others last night as we wanted to try a different option. We've lost some places in the ranking at the moment but we hope to see some progress. The wind is moving around a lot and the pressure isn't constant. ”

Strategy and tactics are going to be the watchwords tonight on each of our 11 boats, but tonight it's anybody's guess as to who will be first to round Muckle Flugga at 61 degrees North...

Update from Aviva:

Dee Caffari and Aviva have to play the waiting game

The constantly changing conditions in the Calais Round Britain Race, have forced the competitors to make some tough tactical decisions in the night. The fleet has split left and right as they sail past the North of Scotland on their way up to the Shetland Islands. Dee Caffari has taken Aviva to right hand side of the race course and she will have to wait until the end of the day to see if the decision will pay off.

Caffari’s Diary - Received Wednesday Morning:

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“A difficult night for Aviva as the wind was up and down all night. The sea state was bumpy and each wave stopped us dead in the water, as we tried to sail with the other boats around us in the upwind conditions. The weather models are currently struggling to agree on what lies ahead of us at the top of the country and this is making planning a strategy very difficult.”

“Despite the cold, the team are doing great and fully focused on staying in touch with the fleet to be able to capitalise on our position when the sailing angle changes.”

“With Akena out to leeward of us by some way and Roxy still sailing along side but to weather of us, we are unable to relax and have a measure on how we are doing with boat speed all the time. This will test our resolve.”

“The cold morning has delivered very shifty winds that require constant tacking and trimming of the boat, which is all good for keeping warm but we will have to wait and see if the short term loss delivers a long term gain.”

Dee, Chook, Frog, Pants and Hugo

Update from Artemis:

Artemis Ocean Racing sticking with the brand new boats

Only 40 miles away from the French leader PRB

“This race is once again living up to its reputation of having everything in it. The boat rankings have been up and down. We had a park up off Ireland where the race restarted again as the fleet compressed, as well as plenty of fog to deal with and of course, now that we are going north, it’s getting colder and colder.

The sailing so far has been quite incredible; the weather has been kind to us and the scenery up the Western side of Ireland, along with the turquoise coloured water, was spectacular. Plus the night sailing has been a dream due to how far north the light remains at this time of year.

We are now on route to Muckle Flugga which is of course the big turning point of the race and where we’re all racing hard to so we can turn down the North Sea and sprint to the finish. Although in this phase of the race it continues to be very tactical. We have boats behind us heading inshore looking to get a better angle, faster boats coming up from behind who we are trying to protect our position against whilst always focusing on keeping our boat going fast.

This has to be one of the most varied, tactical and interesting race courses over 1800 miles. The competition is so close that we have seen another boat everyday and the middle of the fleet positions have changed everyday. It’s shaping up to be another close and tense finish where you had better not relax until you have crossed the finish line back in Calais!

Great racing albeit pretty chilly.

Fraser Brown”

Update from Tememos:

We imagined this climb up towards Scotland would be much more favourable for attacking, but the positions of the boats observed in the early hours of the morning show a completely different picture. Certainly all of them are continuing northwards, but with trajectories more or less inflected towards the Scottish coastline, a choice visibly retained by the top trio but to a lesser extent. Among them, TEMENOS, PRB and more markedly VM Matériaux, have opted to position themselves in the East, favouring a trajectory closer to the goal.

Contacted in the middle of the afternoon, Dominique resumed the situation: "VM Matériaux has positioned itself to the East and Delta Dore is trying to make a run up the outside in a bid for stronger wind. Along with PRB we are continuing a median course. We still have 300 miles to go until Shetland and we will do the accounts at that point."

As a result for the next few hours the fleet should continue upwind on starboard tack, in winds oscillating between 15 and 18 knots, a real luxury after the light winds over the past few days. "All is well aboard. Last night was tricky as the wind was very confused and dropped fairly sharply, which prompted us to keep the genoa hoisted whilst continuing to try and stay on our heading, but we should certainly have passed to the jib earlier on. Since then we have regained a good speed and TEMENOS is much more at ease."

Thick fog banks are continuing to envelope the fleet, and as we make more northing, the cold is becoming increasingly bitter. “It is still very foggy and heavy with humidity. There is very little life around here. We have come across a couple of fishing boats but you really get the sensation that it’s not one of the most frequented places on the globe! As soon as there is a ray of sunshine the decor is fantastic, but in the fog the show is inevitably less cheerful."

To compensate for this, the crews benefit from nearly 22 hours of daytime during this time of year. "You virtually have no darkness, only around 2 hours. It's very nice to sail in these conditions. At night we lack our visual bearings and navigation has to be done using the instruments onboard in the main."

Whilst the most optimistic forecasts show the first of the boats finishing on Tuesday 12th June, the skipper of TEMENOS is instead focused on things closer to home: "For the time being, our finish line is situated in the North of Scotland", an imaginary line that the frontrunners are likely to cross tomorrow evening.

At 1600 hours, TEMENOS was positioned in 3rd place, 19 miles from the leader PRB.