The Jig is Up. Is it time to Turn for Maui?

by Richard Ballantyne, July 11th, 2012

The weak winds at the start held the prospect of weak winds offshore and a slow race. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The winds have been strong (sometimes over 25 and 35 knots) and more northerly, letting the fleet get spinnakers up early and sailing very fast. It is hard to say that any records will be broken, but the Race Tracker prediction currently has the leaders coming in somewhere just under 10 days, and the other boats putting up impressive numbers.

The fleet has generally been sailing south southwest along the Oregon and California coast to take advantage of strong following winds and to avoid the somewhat unstable weak winds of the Pacific High. This has resulted in fast boat speed, but slow VMG (which is the velocity made good towards the Finish in Hawaii). The main weather question is – What is the High going to do? The current weather prediction on the Race Tracker shows the High to move westward, meaning the boats can turn towards Hawaii. But as recent elections have shown, predictions can fall way short of reality.

A couple of boats have taken a more westerly route or tested making the turn.  Notably, Turicum has continually showed well on the Leaderboard, but is position closest to High. The Reds (Red Heather and Red Sheilla) have followed similar courses. If the High moves East, they could be in trouble and have to turn back towards the Coast.

Double Take and Terremoto have an excellent battle for Line Honours and Racing A going.  Conditions were to Terremoto’s liking early in the race, and lead overall at several points so far. But the two have now split with Double Take easing her sails toward Maui, while Terremoto is still favouring the more southerly route, for now. Both are going fast, but which will go faster? Incantation has taken the easterly route as well and is now moving fast. But a late start and early conditions have hampered her ability to reach out on the fleet.

Kinetic has been sailing strong and has been staying ahead of most the Racing B fleet, with the exception of Turicum, by choosing a course between that of Terremoto and Double Take. The others following have been jostling back and forth and may have actually been in sight of each other (a rare event in ocean racing). Bravo Zulu and Family Affair are taking the more easterly route while Anne Bonny is favouring more toward the course of Turicum and the Reds (Is it shaping up to be a War of 1812 battle with the Canadians on one side and the Americans on the other?) 

In Cruising Class, Ballymack appears to have used her iron jib to good use to get out to sea fast, but with stronger wind conditions, Radiance has been sailing fast and has made up a lot of the early spread. But how much penalty time will Ballymack have for using the engine? Big Ben started a day late and is working hard to stay up with the fleet.

Is it time to make a move? The next day or so will tell.

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