ORCV Melbourne to Vanuatu (M2V)

Back to racing.

As the breeze returns to the fleet, various tactical options are now available, depending on where you are on the track and the pace your boat can achieve. Clearly, Scarlet Runner has skipped away to a commanding lead, although it is less than they previously held. TevakeII, a Radford 13.7, is only 60 miles behind and done a great job of separating herself from Samskara, who used to be in second place. They now lie some 45 miles astern of TevakeII. Turbo is another vessel clearly enjoying the ability to fly a kite in a decent breeze, for the Adams 12 now occupies fourth place comfortably, ahead of our friends on the 'we're not really racing, just cruising' 51st Project.

My dark horse, Garisenda. Should I apologise now for putting the hex on them? Pic © Steb Fisher, taken just before Sunday's start.

Sixth is The Secretary, which is a great effort, considering George Shaw and Robyn Brooke are doing it all two-handed. Mind you, the previous M2V and the odd M2O (Melbourne to Osaka) should have taught them a thing or two... My dark horse for handicap honours, Garisenda, lies in seventh. Despite her size, I like the way they have gone about their stuff and now regularly pray that I have not put the hex on them with the wand of death from these pages. Behind them are Slinky Malinky, Mirrabooka and Ingenue (both the latter are Jenneaus). You may remember Mirrabooka won the start and quite possibly the bragging rights of first kite up, once out the Heads. The last four yachts are certainly quite tight, there's like a four mile gap between each of them and in reality, the relative placings can all change now that the lottery of the 'doldrums at 38 degrees South' are a thing of the past.

The race leader has covered over 1/5th of the distance now and at the evening sked on Tuesday, they were adjacent to the very picturesque, Narooma. They would not have seen that wonderful spot on the NSW South coast, however, as they have begun their veer to the East, in order to get well into the Tasman Sea and set up for the run into the South Pacific. Just after dark, we heard from them and this is what her owner, Rob Date, had to say, "Blew the A4 (spinnaker) today, doing 20 knots up the NSW coast. Now headed out on 45 degrees. We used the A3 for a while and now we're onto the JT" (A JT or Jib Topper is a headsail with the foot cut very high and used for reaching, when the boat is heeled over a little, but not pointing as high as it can into the wind and powering through waves). "Pushing current for another hour, then I think it's with us - Rain and squalls occupy our time presently."

At around 0800hrs on Wednesday, I received an email from Scarlet Runner's owner who indicated that they were "135nm off Sydney reaching with jib topper and staysail in 15-25knots. All is well and all too tired to do emails. Sorry. It’s sailing, then bed POS. 35.0.335S and 153,31.71E." I think we can safely say that in that, they will be fast and if the rain showers in any squalls haven't wet them yet, the waves over the bow are bound to have got a few!

TevakeII is adjacent to Merimbula and still close in shore. Samskara, Turbo and The 51st Project will have all cleared Gabo Island Tuesday night and the balance of the fleet will do so on Wednesday. Now it was always going to be a case of keeping a weather eye, given the time of year and the very variable nature of some of the systems around the continent at the time of the start. In fact, this and the Tidetech analysis of the Tasman Sea, were points that ORCV Rear Commodore, Simon Dryden, made during the pre-race briefing.

PredictWind provided this model for what is expected on Wednesday.

All in all, that sounds like a good segue into analysing the new breeze systems and for that, I went back to Simon to see what he thought. "It should be high-speed sailing for the next few days, but strategy is going to be critical. Do they go close to the coast and follow the deepening low up the coast or make a run for it and try and get on the other side of the low? Get it wrong and its headwinds for ages, followed by no wind. Get it right and it could well be a nice elevator, straight into the desired area. The safest strategy would be to travel up the coast and then move off the coast, following your barometer and making sure you don’t get too close to the centre of the low pressure system. Currently, with the way the weather is shaping up, the timing of things for the smaller boats looks better. Many thanks to PredictWind for the wind models."

PredictWind provided this model of what they expect the scenario to be on Saturday.

With all of that done, one is reminded of the old adage that 'It is not over, until it is over' and there are many miles to go yet, in Australia's longest Cat1 ocean race.

To see where the fleet are located and to look at the sked positions, please go HERE.

By John Curnow