Sailing Logic Blog
Friday, 29 August 2008
RORC Madeira-Cowes Race Report No 5: Half way home....
This evening Puma Logic should be around the mid-way point in her race back to Cowes. During Wednesday night they had some pretty nasty conditions; steep unpredictable seas and pitch black, not giving the helms much chance of steering good course all the time. The tracker is most definitely not going to work for the rest of the race which is a real shame; we believe its battery life is just not long enough, even though it was working perfectly well before the yacht left Cowes and again on leaving Madeira. I know the yachts position as do RORC but it is interesting to ponder on how this will affect Pen Azen's tactics or indeed those of Puma.
We are also tracking everyday exactly where British Soldier were at the same point in their race (they left 4 days before Puma and Pen Azen) and its quite reassuring to know that the positions are all very similar, so no one has taken a flyer and been sailing in completely different wind conditions. British Soldier seems to have had quite light winds through the bay of Biscay and at one point it looked like they had been becalmed, so there may be a real opportunity in the next 2 days of the race to overhaul there respective position.
Once again, the tactics in a race like this are endless, and one can only assume what each skipper and crew will decide to do. The weather they have currently and the forecast of what is to come is very important to know, so that they can make choices. Without this information, they would be sailing quite blind. This is where the Iridium Satellite phone comes in. Philippe can hook the phone up to his onboard computer and use the phone to download weather information, which is then turned into a picture file which can then be used to interpret what the weather may do. Obviously as we all know, forecasting the weather is not an exact science so each skipper may interpret it differently, and also, the weather might not do what it is expected to....and we all know about that in the UK don't we!
We are expecting another blog today from one of the crew so it will be sent out as soon as it is received.
Posted by Philippe Falle at 8:37 AM
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This evening Puma Logic should be around the mid-way point in her race back to Cowes. During Wednesday night they had some pretty nasty conditions; steep unpredictable seas and pitch black, not giving the helms much chance of steering good course all the time. The tracker is most definitely not going to work for the rest of the race which is a real shame; we believe its battery life is just not long enough, even though it was working perfectly well before the yacht left Cowes and again on leaving Madeira. I know the yachts position as do RORC but it is interesting to ponder on how this will affect Pen Azen's tactics or indeed those of Puma.
We are also tracking everyday exactly where British Soldier were at the same point in their race (they left 4 days before Puma and Pen Azen) and its quite reassuring to know that the positions are all very similar, so no one has taken a flyer and been sailing in completely different wind conditions. British Soldier seems to have had quite light winds through the bay of Biscay and at one point it looked like they had been becalmed, so there may be a real opportunity in the next 2 days of the race to overhaul there respective position.
Once again, the tactics in a race like this are endless, and one can only assume what each skipper and crew will decide to do. The weather they have currently and the forecast of what is to come is very important to know, so that they can make choices. Without this information, they would be sailing quite blind. This is where the Iridium Satellite phone comes in. Philippe can hook the phone up to his onboard computer and use the phone to download weather information, which is then turned into a picture file which can then be used to interpret what the weather may do. Obviously as we all know, forecasting the weather is not an exact science so each skipper may interpret it differently, and also, the weather might not do what it is expected to....and we all know about that in the UK don't we!
We are expecting another blog today from one of the crew so it will be sent out as soon as it is received.