At the same time, the scenery and the wildlife is changing, with several skippers now reporting having seen their first albatross. Equally, they all must negotiate the notorious eddies of the Agulhas current off South Africa – they are wonderfully rich in biodiversity, but accompanied by unstable and unpredictable weather.
Tough decisions
The leaders, near Marion and Prince Edward Islands, are faced with an immediate dilemma – they must still decide on the most judicious way to negotiate the first low pressure system that’s rolling in behind them. It’s a difficult task thanks to lack of agreement among the weather models, as well as the unstable weather, hence postponing the decision until the last possible moment. Yet the stakes could not be higher, as Sam Goodchild (VULNERABLE) explains:
“My first day in the Indian Ocean was a bit full on, with a rudder downhaul that broke and a few squalls of 30 knots with the big sails up,” he says, “but today there’s been only 5-10 knots of wind all morning, so I’ve had a tidy and a check of the boat.
The decision about this low has to be made today – going south is the shorter route but exposed to some really strong winds. Going north is a long way round, so you have to be sure it’s really necessary. It’s the first big performance vs safety decision we’ve had to make and I’m erring more on the safety side, but you don’t want to give away 1,000 miles for no reason.”
Sam Davies (Initiatives Coeur) was the fastest skipper in the fleet at 1000UTC this morning, having dived south to pick up the next depression as earlier as possible, yet at the 1400 update her speed had dropped to single figures, underlining just how fickle conditions are today.
Some 150 miles behind Davies, Boris Herrmann (Malizia – Sea Explorer), Justine Mettraux (Teamwork – Team SNEF) and Clarisse Crémer (l’Occitane en Provence) were also all doing more than 20 knots but this trio was separated by the slimmest of margins – only 7.4 miles – on the tracker.
An extended transition
“It got colder last night, but now I’m heading north-east into warmer water and the Agulhas current,” Davies says. “I’ll be really happy once I’m past all these eddies and into the cold water of the Indian Ocean – I’m really looking forward to taking my boat around Antartica as it’s such a fun boat to sail. We’re going to be riding this big low pressure system for the next week, so it’s stressful trying to find that balance between sailing fast and sailing carefully, without breaking the boat or the sails. We’ll all be experimenting over the next few days, trying to find the best balance for our boats.”
Among the daggerboard boats, some 2,500 miles behind the leaders, Fabrice Amedeo (Nexans – Wewise) is prepared for a very different next stage. “No more high pressure, no more soft areas and no more mild weather,” he says. “We will have to get into the rhythm of the Southern Ocean, get used to the cold and accept the noise of the boat in rough seas.”
"At some point, we had to take off our shorts and T-shirts,” confirms Damien Seguin (Groupe APICIL) who has changed his wardrobe over the last 24 hours. "Four years ago, I remember that I experienced this transition abruptly because it happened overnight. It's the same this time. The change is much less weighted in this direction than in the other direction, when you go from the tropical zone to the North Atlantic.
The change of scenery is precisely what we are looking for. All that remains is to place the cursor where we really want it. We each manage at our own level. We all have different perceptions. Different boats and stories too.”
Showing humility
"These southern seas are a little scary and at the same time, they are very attractive. They are wild lands. We pass through them with humility, on tiptoe, apologising for being there, in the middle of all this wild nature," adds Amedeo who knows he’s preparing to cross an invisible border. A border that will certainly mark a turning point in his adventure. It’s all about measuring the risks we are prepared to take or not.
