Debris Update

by Richard Ballantyne, July 15th, 2012

A Sailboat race across an ocean littered with debris from the Japan tsunami continues to of major interest to outside observers of this year's Vic-Maui. Looking at NOAA predictions of debris movements, we had thought that the main concentration of debris following the Japanese and California ocean currents would have been crossed at this stage in the race. That has proved not to be the case.

Up to July 13, most of the debris reports from the boats during evening Roll Call were of a 0 or 1 on our scale of 0 to 5 –(0=no debris, 1=occasional small and med debris, 2=regular small and medium debris, 3=regular medium debris, occasional large debris, 4= regular debris of all sizes, 5=constant medium and large debris), with a few chunks of large debris noted, but nothing threatening.

But for some reason the night of July 13 was particularly troublesome with several large objects encountered during the previous 24 hours. 8 of 13 boats reported debris at 3 (regular medium debris, occasional large debris). Red Heather reported seeing a piece of floating concrete dock - they did not stop for a dock party. Terremoto had to stop to more than once to clear plastic chunks off the rudder. On July 14 there were fewer reports of large debris, but 2 boats still reported debris at 3; and Anne Bonny reported spotting a second, separate large chunk of dock.

Tonight (July 15) most reports were debris at 0 or 1, but 3 boats observed debris at 2, and Incantation regular debris of all sizes and were caught in a fishnet for a while.

As of the Roll Call report on July 15 at 1800 hrs HST (2100 hrs PDT), the tally of total reports is:

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