Nat Ives, Mike Golding’s weather and electronics specialist who worked with him during the preparation and build up for the Vendée Globe, has been looking at the weather picture for the first period of the Transat Jacques Vabre, and – he warns – the meteo picture is complex, although it is becoming a little clearer.
There are two main options: taking a beating in the north in bigger winds, but sailing a shorter distance in conditions which are potentially boat breaking, working through the fronts as they come.
Or, the alternative is more conservative, going south and sailing a bigger distance.
Nat talks of the start conditions first:
“ For the start there is a small local low pressure cell which is centred over the Isle of Wight and it travels south and then centres over Bordeaux by start time.
The start is likely to be in light to medium easterlies. As they head off it may be a bit of a downwind start. As they head down towards the Cherbourg peninsula, the breeze will very quickly go to NE’ly and N’lies and will build up to 15+ knots.
So that is the start of it. “
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“ There might be few showers early on, and then just clearing for the start.
Closer to the Cherbourg peninsula then in the evening there will be a band of cloud there because the N’ly and the E’ly combine there and there will be some cloud. West of Cherbourg we might see 20-25 knots of N’ly.
Initially it will be downwind and then they will reach pretty fast down the Channel with the tide with them as well.”
“ At the start it might be a little hard to get settled downwind, but they should be able to get into their stride early on in the Channel.”
“ So it is quite straightforward for the first day.”
Decision time comes early, but looking a long way ahead:
“ Then really it will be time to make the first decisions with big low pressure systems coming in for Days 4 and 5 with the Azores High then really blocking the route south.
The front between those lows, how you negotiate that is a big debate at the moment.
So you can either push north early and as you hit the front the breeze will go from SW’ly to NW’ly and you tack.”
“ But the problem with that is you are going to be in 50 knots of breeze, 40-50 knots is no fun in the North Atlantic in November.”
“ The more conservative route is to just beat upwind around the top of the high in less breeze, 15-20 knots but sailing more distance, giving away distance on the rhumb line.
That is the more conventional route. I think we will see skippers picking their way down and then there is another high coming across.
They will thread their way down to get underneath the second one.”
“ The problem with taking the more northerly route is that it wins out in theory on the models. There are two problems: one you never really sail to your full potential, and you might break your boat, and secondly the north in the second part of the race is not always a great place to be because you have to work your way down to the next high pressure which would be centred on Bermuda, say.”
“I don’t think it is easy. It is changing all the time as the forecasts come out. The critical part will be how low the depression tracks through. That depression at the moment starts off Nova Scotia on Wednesday and comes across. If it tracks relatively normally, that is quite south then it will squash the Azores High south again and the crews can stay close to the rhumb line without having to get into too much of a battle with depressions.
But if it tracks more northerly as some have done recently, then the Azores High will push up, right up across Biscay and that will be more of an obstacle and that will push them further north.”
“ The routes are looking more conventional as time goes on. Now they are much more middle of the Western Approaches. Day by day it gets a little more comfortable.
Looking at it now, what is driving the routes is what is off Nova Scotia on Wednesday and ultimately that is arriving with them next Friday, Saturday. So that is a long way out in forecasting terms, and so it is very difficult to make a call early on.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
“There might be some brave and more bullish people pushing to the north, if they have faith in their boats.”
“But if people are more conservative, and I think they will be, then I think they will be happy to sail off the breeze around the high and give up some miles.”
“ Yesterday the difference between the two routes might have been as much as 400 miles after eight or nine days, now the two routes are less distinctive. It might now be as little as a couple of hundred miles.”
