Leg 6 is another long one at 6,100 miles. Starting on the 7th February, it will take the fleet across the South China Sea to the northern tip of the Philippines. After that, it’s out into the Pacific and a long drag race to the south-east, dodging the many island chains of Polynesia until they reach Auckland.
It’s another leg that will be dominated strategically by the north to south transit of Climate Zones (the earth’s oceanic climate features distinct bands, lying horizontally and looping the globe, running out from the Equator to the Poles in a mirror image). And although Hong Kong is a new stopover, it’s not far from Sanya, which is where the equivalent leg started last time. So this one has some history.
What lies in wait for unwary navigators on this one?
North-East Monsoon: Leg 6 will start as Leg 4 finished in the North-East Monsoon (a wind created by the clockwise flow around a huge seasonal hight pressure over central Asia). The difference is that instead of a sailing downwind, they will be forced to go upwind, against the wind. This is what solo circumnavigator, Sam Davies said form onboard Team SCA while battling upwind in the North-East Monsoon in 2015.
“We have been out here for 24 hours now and finally we get what we came for -life at the extreme. Extreme angles of heel, extremely WET, extreme levels of difficulty in doing ANYTHING on board.” The opening section of this leg has the potential to be brutal. We’re talking boat-breaking stuff.
More Island Chains: Once they clear the northern tip of the Philippines, the boats will hold the north-easterly winds (now more normally called the north-east Trade Winds, moderate to strong winds that blow consistently towards the equator from the north-east in the northern hemisphere). The course is now south-east, so there, should be a few days of fast sailing. They will blast to the east of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, before the long stretch through the South Pacific, past Vanuatu and Fiji before landing in the City of Sails. All of these land masses can have an impact on tactics and strategy, depending on how close they end up to them.
The Doldrums: Yup, the Doldrums are back (a region of low pressure that envelopes the earth’s oceans roughly at the equator, famous for thunderstorms, light winds, rain and sudden unexpected gusts), and in this part of the Pacific they occur in a double belt, separated by a band of easterly trade winds.
In fact, the more precise sequence of global climate zones is actually north-east trade winds, Doldrums, easterly trade winds, Doldrums and then south-east trade winds (this is proper weather nerd bar talk). But in the Atlantic (and most of the rest of the planet), the easterly trade wind zone between the two Doldrums zones is very small and poorly defined. And so the term has come to mean the whole area of light wind and squalls between the north-east and south-east trade winds.
But in the Pacific, and particularly en route to Auckland, the easterly trade winds can be well formed, and that means that the fleet may well have to transit a second band of Doldrums. This section could easily decide the leg.
Trade Wind Drag Race: Once they clear the Doldrums, life should get easier, at least for the strategy department. If the south-east Trade Winds are well established (Trade Winds blow consistently towards the equator from the south-east in the southern hemisphere) they will be sailing towards the finish in sunshine and great waves.
The South Pacific High (a Subtropical High Pressure Zone, a stable, semi-static area of High Pressure lying between 30 and 38 degrees) usually lies a good long way to the east, closer to South America, and so they will definitely remain on its western side, and in wind from the easterly quadrant. And with Auckland just short of 37 degrees south with a sub-tropical climate, there’s a good chance the fleet will get close to the finish in great, steady conditions.
So what’s the casualty list like on this leg?
Pick your sport, pick your poison: in 2008-09 four of seven boats that took on the North-East Monson had to stop for significant repairs, two of them didn’t complete the leg, and one finished after the re-start of the next leg!
And that same year the Telefónica Blue and PUMA teams were forced to ‘thread the needle’ – going through Fiji rather than round it, leading to a famous email from Ian Walker to PUMA, “Nice one, but are you sure you can get under the new road bridge?” There was no road bridge.
And of course, the final run in to Auckland, down the east coast of New Zealand has seen many classic match races over the years, not least of which was the ‘blue on blue’ / Kiwi v Kiwi battle for home town honors in 1989-90. Peter Blake’s Steinlager edged out Grant Dalton’s Fisher & Paykel after the latter got flattened by a massive 40knot squall... it’s never over till it’s over.
Team AkzoNobel has won Leg 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race, racing 6,344 miles from Hong Kong to Auckland in 20 days, 9 hours and 17 minutes and 26 seconds.
It was a tremendous win, and came after an epic final 24 hours, when a ridge of high pressure off the north east coast of New Zealand stalled the progress of the leading boats, allowing those behind to close what had appeared to be an insurmountable gap.
Leg 6 Strategic Review Part 4 - Endgame Text by Mark Chisnell
There are less than 24 hours to go in Leg 6 – and after a challenging and dramatic three weeks of sailing it seems only fitting that the endgame could be dominated by the movement of one final weather system.
The leaders are banging into the light air of a high pressure and the wind speed is dropping once again. The fleet are compressing and a low pressure is barreling in from the west to bring new breeze to the back of the fleet first... it could just bring the fleet back together one last time for the final run into Auckland.
Or not. It might be, and some would say it should be that the pair that have been leading since the North Pacific – Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag and Team AkzoNobel – have already done enough for one of them to take the win...
Lots of weather This has been the leg when weather properly trumped climate. Regular readers will know that these strategic reviews rely heavily on the idea of climate zones – that the earth’s oceanic climate features distinct bands, lying horizontally and looping the globe, running out from the Equator to the Poles in a mirror image.
When the fleet races from north to south (or vice versa) as they are on Leg 6, then they cross through several of these climate zones and the transitions from one type of weather or climate zone to the next become the critical features of the strategic game. It would be something of an understatement to say that the weather has pushed the climate into the background on this leg – but as I said in the last Strategic Review while the normal climate patterns have been disrupted by some big weather systems there have still been transitions. We left the fleet trying to make a big one and scrabble an exit from the Doldrums.
Recompression We can see in Image 1 from 13:00UTC on the 19th February – the time when we left the fleet – that the Doldrums were stretched out wide and deep before them as they raced south towards Vanuatu.
The fleet had recompressed significantly as they hit the light winds, bringing the long-term leaders, Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag (grey) and Team AkzoNobel (purple) within striking distance of Team Brunel (yellow) and Turn the Tide on Plastic (light blue) – while overall leaders MAPFRE (white) and Dongfeng Race Team (red) still had plenty to do at the back.
The prognosis wasn’t good either; the movement of Cyclone Gita across the race course had disrupted the normally reliable trade winds, muddying the route to the Doldrums exit. Image 2 shows the predicted optimal route (as of the 19th February) for the fleet to the finish, with their predicted positions at 13:00UTC on the 25th February.
It looked like the best strategy was a long loop to the west to avoid a high pressure system that was drifting east from the Tasman Sea over New Zealand before moving out to the Pacific. Coming in from the west was a big low pressure system – visible bottom-left in Image 2 – that would eventually bring them the breeze to take them to the line. It turned out that this forecast wasn’t too far off the mark.
Opening salvo Let’s go back to the 19th February momentarily, and then skim quickly over the horrors of the subsequent 48 hours in the Doldrums. They were as tough as we expected, as the fleet fought to get south down the Solomon Islands. We can see the fleet in Image 3 from 13:00UTC on the 21st February with the breeze just starting to stabilise and fill back in – everyone has 4-6 knots from the south-east (110-145).
They have effectively split into three match races, Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag versus Team AkzoNobel; Team Brunel up against Turn the Tide on Plastic; and finally MAPFRE duking it out with Dongfeng Race Team at the back.
New leader, different strategy The leaderboard now had Turn the Tide on Plastic in the lead though, and this is because (along with Team Brunel) they have taken a position to the east of the lead pair. The Scallywags and Team AkzoNobel look to be committed to the loop to the west, but those behind them are trying to cut the corner and save some miles. The question (as always) will be whether or not more speed over more miles, will beat a shorter distance in lighter winds.
Let’s zoom out and go forward 24 hours to have a look at the bigger picture in Image 4 from 13:00UTC on the 22nd February.
Although it’s still very light, the south-east trade winds are trying to restore some normality to the situation, and the fleet has remained in a light 5-9knot east-southeasterly. The dominant features strategically are New Caledonia (just ahead and to windward of the fleet), and the big high pressure that’s moved into the Tasman Sea in the wake of the cyclone (which is now moving off-stage, bottom right of the image).
Wind shadow A band of stronger wind to the south of New Caledonia can be seen in this image, but so can the wind shadow to the west of the island. The fleet had to balance getting south quickly to get into the new stronger wind, while not getting too close to the big hole in the breeze west of New Caledonia – oh, and the barrier reef that Turn the Tide on Plastic had to dodge.
The leaders, Team AkzoNobel and the Scallywags had gone further west, and so given up their position at the top of the leaderboard to Turn the Tide on Plastic and Team Brunel who were cutting the corner and in doing so moving closer to Auckland. From this moment onwards, the leaderboard temporarily becomes a bit meaningless, as the fleet follows through on these different strategies.
Double-down If we go forward another 37 hours to Image 5 from 02:00UTC on the 24th February we can see that Team Brunel used this period and a StealthPlay to double down on their strategy.
They went into Stealth to hide their course change to take a much more direct route towards Auckland, while Turn the Tide on Plastic actually reversed their strategy and joined Team AkzoNobel and the Scallywags in the race south. This southern group had now found plenty of wind – 17-19 knots from the east-southeast – while the easterly boats had suffered in the lee of New Caledonia and still didn’t have quite the same amount of breeze. It certainly didn’t look good for Team Brunel, with both MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team coming into the back of them, while the leaders had pushed a lot further south. It was a bold StealthPlay, but...
Moving High If we go forward another 24 hours to Image 6 from 02:00UTC on the 25th February we can see the reason for the southerly advance of the leaders.
The predicted inbound low pressure system has moved into the Tasman Sea and the accompanying frontal change is now clearly visible, anchored on the NSW coast and running away to the south-east.
This system is bringing a lot more breeze to the southern boats. The movement of the high pressure – pushed eastwards by the arrival of the low pressure – is also providing them with a wind shift from the east-southeasterly to a more northerly wind that’s allowing them to turn towards Auckland and maintain a fast sailing angle. This was the strategy predicted in Image 2 being perfectly executed.
Short-cut’s a long-cut If we now go forward another 30 hours to Image 7 from 07:00UTC today, the 26th February, and the Scallywags have just finished a StealthPlay. Team AkzoNobel are still in theirs, but I think we can safely assume that they are somewhere just to the south and east of Scallywag.
This group of three boats now has a substantial lead on the three boats that took the more easterly route, we can see that the short-cut hasn’t worked out for Team Brunel in particular. MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team have done a tidy job of closing onto the leader’s line and now have some of the best breeze on the race course. But Team Brunel have flown too close to the centre of the high in an effort to save miles, and now appear to have dropped off the edge of a cliff, losing 60 miles to the Dongfeng/MAPFRE pair. They look stranded.
Up to date Let’s bring it up to date in Image 8 from 13:00UTC today, 26th February.
Team AkzoNobel are leading the top three by a handful of miles around the top of New Zealand. They have slowed significantly as they move into the high pressure, with just 3-6 knots of northerly wind. They are about to make a turn to the south, down the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, and it’s going to get even more painful, as they try to sail downwind in the light conditions.
I think this turn is going to be important, in fact, while it’s going to feel horribly slow trying to get down the coast, the right-turn will protect them from the pair chasing from behind. It’s a simplification, but a new wind approaching from the west reaches everyone racing on a north to south line at the same time. So any distance the leaders can get down the coast before MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team get to the corner should be a bankable lead.
Critical turn The turn will also be important because it will take the fleet down the coast, bringing a lot of potential for local coastal effects, like sea breezes. At the time of writing it’s dark in New Zealand, but the sunrise will bring the potential for local winds springing up.
And let’s not forget that MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team are still over 90 miles behind, which is a very long way with just 200 miles to the finish. They do have 12-13 knots of windspeed and are going a lot faster. They are sailing right on the front edge of the new wind from the low pressure system, visible to the west of them, so the gap will close... but I don’t think it will close to zero and create a passing opportunity. Of course, I’ve been wrong before...
Moving low In Image 9 we can see the predicted route down the east coast at 01:00UTC on the morning of the 27th February – just under 12 hours ahead.
There is a problem with the tracker and so Team AkzoNobel’s position isn’t moving, but we can assume they will be with Scallywag and Turn the Tide on Plastic, about 50nm down the coast, with MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team about 20-25nm behind.
There’s a lot of uncertainty involved in these predictions, because they don’t effectively account for local conditions, and a tiny difference in the movement or intensity of the high pressure could also make a massive difference to the outcome.
The good news for the lead trio is that the breeze is filling in all around them, not just from the west, but moving up towards them from the south. So while the next 12-15 hours is going to be pretty agonizing... relief is on the way.
Filling in If we go forward just another six hours to Image 10 showing predicted positions and weather at 07:00UTC on the 27th February, we can see that the breeze has filled in all the way along the east coast down to Auckland.
If this turns out to be correct, it’s going to turn into a drag race for the final section across the Hauraki Gulf and into the Viaduct.
It might be very unlikely that MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team can cross the gap to the leaders and make it a five-way battle, but that doesn’t alter the fact that both the lead trio and the pair behind them have got some very serious racing ahead of them to win their groups. Auckland has a history of tight finishes and I don’t think this one will be any different.
It will come down to the crews who can read the local conditions best, the people who know when to close with the coast, and those who know when to stand off. Those who know where to find the first of the sea breeze, and where it blows strongest. It’s going to be a great 24 hours of racing to crown a very worthy winner in the City of Sails.
Leg 6 had everything from wet, high-speed dashes to drifting in soaring temperatures of the Doldrums in the 6100 nautical miles to Auckland. Watch Leg 6 in 208 seconds:
