Volvo Ocean Race: All on between MAPFE and Brunel
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz 24 Jun 2018 01:05 BST
24 June 2018
Team Brunel - Leg 11, from Gothenburg to The Hague, day 03. Heli LIVE as the fleet blast south, eyes set on The Hague. 23 June, © Ainhoa Sanchez / Volvo Ocean Race
The Volvo Ocean Race leaders have now split into two groups - with Dongfeng taking the coastal route inshore of the Exclusion Zone off the The Hague.
The other two, MAPFRE and Team Brunel have taken the more direct route, but will have to hook around the southern end of the Exclusion Zone and sail back to the finish off The Hague.
Using the routing function of Predictwind, the widely used weather and related functions app, it seems that the race will develop into a battle between MAPFRE and Team Brunel, in similar condition initially to those they enjoyed in the final stages of Leg 10 - where Brunel sailed over the top of MAPFRE to take the leg win.
The race yachts see just two organiser supplied weather feeds, where the model used by Predictwind shows those two feeds plus two other feeds. All four feeds show and advantage to the offshore group - MAPFRE and Team Brunel, but by varying margins.
One of the feeds the ECMWF - which is generally considered to be the most accurate shows a significant advantage to Brunel, however without running detailed waypoints for the Exclusion Zone, it would seem likely that one of her course options would force Brunel into the Exclusion Zone.
Another explanation is that because Brunel is starting to windward of MAPFRE she has more room to spend in the approach to The Hague and can optimise her course and speed more than the Spanish entry.
Allowing for the massive virtual obstruction of the Exclusion Zone created to keep the race yachts out of the Traffic Separation Scheme off The Hague, both course options sail a similar distance 275-280nm and will take approximately 18hours to sail.
Current weather routing gives the advantage to MAPFRE and Brunel by about 15-20 minutes with 18hours less to sail.
The question on the two routes is whether the wind will hold up - with the breeze for Brunel and MAPFRE showing as being fresh initially according to one feed at 19kts average but dropping just before noon on the final day to just under 10kts.
The wind is slightly stronger at 20kts average for the inshore course option chosen by Dongfeng (and also back-markers Turn the Tide on Plastic and SHK Scallywag). It also eases but stays above 11kts on the inshore option the boat speeds are slightly better in the latter stages of the leg for the inshore course.
However the general rule with weather routing is that the most direct course is usually the best, and the issue for Dongfeng is that once they get further committed to the inshore course there is no escape and they are committed to sailing up a relatively narrow passage.
About 1500hrs UTC Brunel suffered a setback after breaking a padeye off the forward reaching strut and repairing the damage slowed the Dutch entry for 45 minutes so that two of the crew could work forward and to leeward under very difficult conditions.
According to a report from on board, Brunel lost about 1.4nm on their local rival Team AkzoNobel and the rest of the fleet.
Conditions at the time were reported as 25kts of True Wind Speed and the boat was sailing at 20kts of boat speed. An hour earlier Brunel reported that the breeze was "rising and starting to clock aft slowly."
At that point AkzoNobel was .6nm off Brunel's bow however underlining the windward advantage held by Brunel they claimed a better wind angle than the red boats (Dongfeng and MAPFRE) which at that stage had not split courses.