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10:10 PM Mon 2 Mar 2009 GMT
The Portim?o Global Ocean Race fleet are gradually unsticking from the grip of a high-pressure system as the four boats squeeze down towards the ice gate and exclusion zone at 45?S. At 1800 GMT on Sunday, the double-handed fleet headed south-east in unison to distance themselves from the centre of a high pressure system to the north, with solo sailor, Michel Kleinjans, on board Open 40, Roaring Forty, making the most dramatic descent, pulling out of his dive this morning just 20 miles above the ice gate.
In the latest position poll at 1520 GMT today (02/03), the four boats are spread in a narrow corridor just 10 miles wide with Team Mowgli furthest south, 38 miles above the ice gate and Desafio Cabo de Hornos taking the northern station. Jeremy Salvesen, skipper of Class 40, Team Mowgli, in second place behind the Chilean duo of Felipe Cubillos and Jos? Mu?oz on Desafio Cabo de Hornos, describes the conditions: 'We have had a frustrating couple of days with light and very shifty winds as we have worked our way southwards towards the 45? south limit.' Salvesen and his co-skipper, David Thomson, had a clearly defined strategy. 'Having been trying to be the most northerly boat in the fleet for a few days, it has been our intention to be the most southerly as we got into the current high pressure system,' continues Salvesen. 'It was a battle getting there, but one which is ever so slowly paying off for us. The 20 mile lead that the Chileans gained over us has now been eroded to just 1.5 miles.'
Trailing the leading boat by 34 miles, Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme on Beluga Racer are averaging the highest speed in the double-handed class at 7.2 knots with the fleet's only solo sailor, Michel Kleinjans on Roaring Forty, chasing the Class 40 backmarker just three miles off the German boat's starboard quarter.
With the threat of a major time penalty from the race organisation for straying south of the latitude 45 limit, any clockwise shift in wind direction offering an opportunity to move away from the southern barrier is quickly grabbed. 'We now have the new wind - of sorts - and have gybed back onto port, but the wind is still very unsettled in both direction and speed,' reports Salvesen. 'Anything from four to 15 knots with a direction of 300 degrees to 10 degrees! Doesn't make trimming the sails or keeping to your course very easy.'
For the fleet pinned down near the southern limit, easterly breeze is a genuine, strategic threat. 'The future weather picture looks equally unsettled,' predicts the British skipper. 'There's a small front and low pressure system coming our way in the next day or so which will give us quite strong headwinds for a time,' he explains. 'There will be a real risk of being headed southwards towards the no-go area with the unpalatable alternative of a very northerly tack.' As yet, there is no way of accurately forecasting the wind direction. 'We're on a bit of a tightrope,' Salvesen admits. 'It totally depends on exactly where all these systems move.'
So far, the Portim?o Global Ocean Race teams are holding their nerve and their tight formation and no boat has made a northerly breakaway to bank some distance from the southern limit. 'We hope everyone at home is enjoying the close match racing as much as we are,' says Salvesen. 'It is pretty incredible to have the whole fleet so close together after the best part of 2,000 miles of racing.'
www.portimaoglobaloceanrace.com/
by Oliver Dewar
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