The storms that are shaping Cole’s and Philippe’s duel in the GSC

Cole Brauer – First Light @colebraueroceanracing

Two days ago the amazing Philippe Delamare rounded Cape Horn. He did so at night, in the midst of some typical nasty Drake passage weather, with winds blowing around 35-40 knots and with the passage of a squally cold front bound to have brought gusts well over 50 knots. Philippe chose a course which prudently allowed him to gain miles towards the south so as to create more room between him and the Chilean lee shore. He gave himself the option to stay off the continental shelf altogether or decide, on his final approach, if he felt comfortable venturing into the shallower waters south of the Cabo de Hornos archipelago that can bring the infamous messy and dangerous seas that made Cape Horn so dreaded through history.

Philippe eventually chose to clip the corner of the protruding continental shelf whilst still giving a wide berth to Isla Cabo de Hornos passing around 15 Nautical Miles offshore. Since his rounding conditions have hardly improved and in fact a new severe storm was brewing just behind him meaning he has not been able to let his guard down quite yet. Two days ago I wrote suggesting Philippe may take a northerly course inside of the Falklands after la Isla de Los Estados, where certainly he would have found lighter winds and less swell. From a pure routing point of view, however, braving the oncoming storm would have taken the French skipper on a slingshot towards the north east keeping him in strong following winds for another 4 days which could make him cover very precious miles towards the finish line and allow him to fend off any possible attack to his leading position from the competitors still in the Pacific.

In fact, Cole Brauer on First Light, just as Philippe rounded the Horn seemed to have put her foot on the gas and started recording some impressive speeds which may have added to Philippe’s pressure to ensure he did not waste the opportunity he had to cement his lead by enduring storm conditions for just a little longer.

The young American skipper kept her sight east and with a severe depression forming behind her we held our breath wondering if she’d just take it on or whether she’d try to avoid the worst of the gyrating red inferno. Her course held steady and it soon became clear that she was aiming to stay just north of the centre and bravely press on. In the space of just two days she gained over 200 miles on Philippe whose quietness seemed to be a sign of his need to concentrate on his route.

The scenario where Cole could find a motorway to the Horn whilst Philippe buckled in on a conservative course to the west of the Falklands seemed to be a very real and possible development. By the the 10th of January, the day following his rounding, Philippe’s estimated time of arrival margin had shrunk to just over 9 days, which may still seem a lot, but Cole had 3000 miles ahead of her of open Pacific Ocean whilst the French skipper could clearly see that the days of fast sailing were numbered for him, and taking the easier option west would have certainly exposed him to the American skipper’s attack. Further up the route to A Coruna, and especially in the transition towards the trade winds conditions can be difficult, near Brazil the trades rotate to the point of being unfavourable whilst sailing north  and around the latitude of Rio de Janeiro conditions can be fickle and tricky. Avoiding headwinds often means sailing through areas of high pressure with light following winds, certainly not the favourite point of sail for a displacement boat such as Mowgli.

We had therefore two parallel situations developing, on the one side Philippe had to choose whether to endure another storm or play safe and go inshore of the Falklands, which in days to come would have certainly cost him a lot of precious time. On the other side of the Andean Mountain Range, Cole had her foot heavy on the gas and making some very serious gains. Yet, simultaneously she had to look at what lay ahead for her in terms of developing weather patterns. Was there a motorway to the Horn for her? Well, not quite, and the weather scenarios were still difficult to decipher. Without a crystal ball at hand, Cole and her shore team were certainly monitoring the first storm, which they decided to take full on without any course variations, as well as what was brewing in the Screaming Fifties pot.

It is very likely that the uncertain situation led Philippe to bite the bullet and brave yet another storm taking no chances with Cole, after all he knows he is now out of the southern pacific motorway and that soon he’ll  have to deal with the small country roads of the wiggly way up the South Atlantic, and that he can’t predict what the Pacific could bring to his closest rival.

On the afternoon of the 10th of January things took an unexpected turn, Cole was heading nearly due north on what seemed an inexplicable route. Many comments appeared on social media wondering whether she had encountered problems in the storm she had just faced, at some point she had even slowed down bringing some to fear the worst. In reality the uncertain weather was developing in an unfavourable way threatening to put Cole into yet a new storm, however, this time, upwind rather than downwind! I can assure you that if sailing in 50-55 knots of wind (as she did in the last storm) seems like a hellish situation for many, you simply can’t imagine what sort of multiplying factor you have to use to describe how much worse it is to sail into the same conditions upwind. To put it simply, the risk of breaking the boat is so high that there is nothing to make that a choice worth considering. The line where bravery becomes outright foolishness would be certainly crossed and if things were to go wrong there would be no court of appeal to invoke ignorance as the laws of nature and physics, just like those in a court of law they do not let you get away with your mistakes by simply saying “I didn’t know”.

So we come to today, where the Pacific brewing pot has started to swirl and cook its next storm. Cole’s change of course and path to the north east, which the uninitiated thought was the indication that the American skipper was facing problems, are revealing her need to anticipate and avoid severe “boat-breaking” headwinds she would have encountered had she not taken action. Cole is routing again just to the north of the centre of this new low, which is far from saying that she’s running away from the storm, she’s simply trying to position herself on “safe side” just north of the centre, where she will still face a severe storm, but it won’t be upwind…

After this difficult moment and inevitable loss of extremely precious miles Cole should find again fast sailing conditions, difficult to say now if the motorway will be clear all the way to the Horn, but we can only wait and see. Obviously the big question is, did Philippe’s choice to bite the bullet and stay in the strong following storm east of the Falklands combined with Cole’s inevitable need to preserve the integrity of her boat by taking a detour to the north of her storm mean that a comeback and catch up is no longer possible? Cole has passed the psychological point where she has less than 10 thousand miles to go and let’s put it this way: to finish first you first have to finish, and just how tricky the route north in the South Atlantic can become for Philippe is impossible to predict. All we know is that whilst Cole has lost some time in the past two days, the French skipper has told us something important just  through his actions and route, that he does not think he’s got his victory in the bag quite yet as he has been willing to take further risk to consolidate his lead.

If you love weather routing as much as I do, you’d probably also understand my absolute excitement in following all the developments. You also have to forgive me for focusing so much on this duel, but it is quite a key moment in the event, one that may shape the final result.

There is however a lot more that should be said as this is not a two-horse event. Galloping behind Cole, Ronnie Simpson has had to deal with some complex weather just south of New Zealand which forced him to be cautious but since then he has resumed sailing at a good and relentless pace with what seems to be a good weather window ahead into the weekend and beginning of next week. He has narrowed the gap to Cole to just over 1300 miles and whilst this seems huge for two boats with similar speed potential, a lot can happen in 10 thousand miles, and just as Cole lost a couple hundred miles of her margin to Ronnie in a couple of days you can see that patience, focus and determination should never leave the mind of every skipper as things can change at any moment. Let’s not forget that Ronnie is this far back only because he had to stop in Hobart, a stop that cost him 1400 miles over the gap he had at the time of his change of route to Hobart, and now, he is trailing by a distance that has decreased so much that net of his stop, he would have actually overtaken Cole. Perhaps there are too many ifs to consider, but in opera you would say it’s not over until the fat lady sings.

Weather has dealt a few odd cards further back too, and especially to Riccardo Tosetto who found himself dealing with some rather unusual headwinds and nasty residual seas that made it impossible for the Italian skipper to sail a decent course to the south-east, being forced for a while to bear off to ease the slamming and losing effectively miles to the south west. When we look at the tracker from home we are often misled into thinking a skipper is making an error or that he or she is having problems, but we often neglect to look at the overall picture including waves and their interaction with winds which can bring about “boat-breaking” conditions where speed must be reduced or course altered to avoid damage.

Riccardo’s loss in this case has been Francois Gouin’s gain on Kawan3 Unicancer, the French skipper had chosen a very different route dipping very far south which led him to close the entire 300 mile gap he had from the Italian skipper of Obportus and briefly overtaking him as of yesterday morning. Since then Riccardo has finally found the windshift he had been waiting for for over a day and has sped up once again to the east fending off, for the time being, Francois’ attack on his 5th place in the rankings.

In other news, some skippers have been facing difficulties and in the course of this week Louis Robein confirmed he will need to stop in Hobart to get another hydrogenerator after losing one at sea and to carry out other essential repairs. Edouard De Keyser on Solarwind may be forced to a stop too, as, despite sailing very well and making good progress, he has again faced some technical difficulties. Both skippers will have to watch their timing as they must be in a position to restart by the second week of february at the latest, for safety reasons, or will unfortunately not be allowed to continue. This time limit rule exists to ensure that skippers stopping can restart within a reasonable timeframe to still be able to round Cape Horn before the end of March when the end of the austral summer and the beginning of Autumn can bring significantly more difficult sailing conditions and become a danger to the safety of participants.

Pavlin Nadvorni on Espresso Martini has sailed into the Pacific and past the midway point however he has been unable to find the mindset to celebrate as new technical issues have left the Bulgarian skipper to announce the need to stop in New Zealand to attend to the detachment of several sections of his mainsail’s track, as well as other problems. Pavlin has been tried and tested by several snags as of late and we hope he finds solutions and the energy and motivation he needs to set sail after the planned repairs.

David Linger on Koloa Maoli is the latest of the skipper to have passed the latitude of the southern tip of Tasmania that marks effectively both the midway point of the journey and the beginning of the Pacific. Both David and William MacBrien have managed their course with seamanship and caution and proceed well without reporting any significant problems, which as we have seen is never to be taken for granted.

Andrea Mura on Vento di Sardegna has been weaving a course to climb north when deep depressions threaten to bring severe conditions, followed by dips to the south to avoid the ridges of high pressure in between depressions. Andrea has managed the balance between speed and risks, especially considering his Open 50 is light in displacement and is not at its full potential in strong wind and large waves conditions. Andrea has reached the “back of the fleet” on his pursuit started on the 18th of November, the last boat to leave A Coruna on its allocated start, and is now sailing in 9th position in the water 700 miles behind his next target, William MacBrien on Phoenix.

Alessandro Tosetti has reached the ice limit zone north of the Crozet Islands and is just a few hundred miles from where disaster struck for Ari Känsäkoski when he dismasted on the night of the 21st December. Alessandro has been busy trying to push harder on his ULDB 65 Aspra as a slow descent of the Atlantic and a stopover in Cape Town currently project him to finish past the event time limit set for May 22nd.

Ari Känsäkoski, meanwhile has managed to cover 800 miles from the time he dismasted and is now less than 400 miles from Durban, his journey has been one of incredible seamanship and calm and collected skill in nursing his boat towards Africa under jury rig and limited fuel. Hopefully the weather conditions remain favourable for his final big push which could see him safely in Durban by the beginning of next week.

Yesterday saw Kevin Le Poidevin leave the Atlantic for the Indian ocean, the Australian skipper is in good spirits and is focused on his journey and does not seem to have been affected by the unfortunate circumstances that led him to leave A Coruna with a 4 week delay which place him last on the water for this reason.

There is no dull day in the Global Solo Challenge and following closely the developments, the ups and downs that every skipper has to deal with, never leaves me short of amazed at the incredible effort all participants are putting in.