Oceanracing - Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race

Clipper 05-06 Round the World Yacht Race
www.clipper-ventures.com - Übersicht

3rd December 2005 Into the Roaring Forties
Photo by: ESA

Wave height in Summer
As the previous weather front passed over the fleet conditions have been quite varied from boat to boat. Richard Falk, duty skipper on Singapore Clipper described the wind as “naff”, but was happy at least that it had stopped raining. There was also a counter-current which did not help matters much. The variable wind has also lead to some spinnaker damage, with two yachts reporting rips of various severity in their medium weight spinnakers. The sail repair teams are at work now, and hopefully they will be flying again soon.

The leaderboard this morning shows some movement. Glasgow and Victoria Clippers were hit worst by the variable wind – they were both in the same patch of air, and both lost about 15 to 20 miles to the others. Unfortunately for Glasgow this meant dropping from 3rd to 7th, since at the last sched the difference between 3rd and 7th was a whole 4 miles. Jersey Clipper is the first yacht into the Roaring Forties, making a quite pronounced southern move. This may pay off, as the wind is forecast to be more steady to the south. Qingdao is quietly creeping back up too, with Danny Watson and his crew coming back up to 5th place. They are still having problems with their index email system, but reports from the yacht this morning say that they are making progress. For the moment please send emails as normal, because the system will send all messages in the pipeline once a connection is made. The Roaring Forties have a reputation, as the name would suggest, of having strong winds and high seas. If you think about the northern hemisphere, a line along 45 degrees north takes you across North America, through the Great Lakes, across 2500 miles of the North Atlantic into the Bay of Biscay, through central Europe, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and then an awful lot of Asia until you get to the Pacific Ocean. A similar line at 45 degrees south takes you across less than 400 miles of South America, about 150 miles of the south island of New Zealand, and near a couple of rather bleak rocks elsewhere – in other words it is almost completely uninterrupted water. This means that any waves and swell which builds up has a massive distance (known as “fetch”) in which to do so, and can build up to be quite high,as illustrated, but importantly very long so they are not that steep. In the worst midwinter storms, therefore, this is not a pleasant place to be, with depressions circling the South Pole and causing a massive band of wind and energy. However, in midsummer, as we have now in the southern hemisphere, conditions are not nearly as bad, as the South Indian Ocean high pressure system is in the south, and the lows which pass by are therefore pushed further south themselves.