Race leader waiting for right moment to take on St Helena High VELUX 5 OCEANS race leader Brad Van Liew is waiting for a “window of opportunity” to start the final sprint to Cape Town. The 42-year-old American solo sailor has led the fleet for the majority of the last 16 days since leaving La Rochelle in France on ocean sprint one to Cape Town.
Since crossing the Equator into the Southern Hemisphere on Saturday, Brad and his Eco 60 yacht Le Pingouin have been blasting down the east coast of Brazil in steady winds, a refreshing contrast to the frustrating conditions of the Doldrums. Brad has a lead over second placed Zbigniew ‘Gutek’ Gutkowski of more than 150 nautical miles – but with around 3,000 nautical miles still to go before Cape Town, the race is far from over.
The race leaders must next tackle the St Helena High, a huge area of high pressure sitting in the South Atlantic between them and their destination. A quick passage through the South Atlantic will rely on finding a corridor through using the west-moving low pressure systems that form off the coast of Brazil.
“I’m getting ready for the big wind shift here and then some tricky weather as I work my way south along the Brazilian coast until we can find a window of opportunity to do the big left hand turn,” Brad said this morning. “It’s going to be tricky. The St Helena High, the high pressure system that establishes out in the middle of the South Atlantic in between where I am now and Cape Town, is not really one big stable high like the Azores high. It’s more a series of highs that tend to roll off the South American coast so the hard part is trying to find a window of opportunity to get between one of those highs coming off the coast and going over to become the St Helena High and to find also the opportunity for when there is a low which is the right one to hook on to and start your move to the west.”
Despite his lead, Brad’s is constantly aware of the ever present Operon Racing and its unrelenting skipper Gutek, who has refused to let Brad out of his sight since day one.
“I’m always watching Gutek,” Brad said. “He’s been pushing pretty hard the whole leg and he’s been doing a really good job. I’m a little bit further ahead of Gutek but it is by no means an insurmountable lead. Could he get it back? Yeah of course he could. Two hundred miles isn’t a lot to be able to get back or to lose in a race like this.”
He added: “It looks to me like the weather is going to be a little less stable which will probably give Gutek a few opportunities to pass. There will be a few different routes we will be able to take in the sprint to the finish and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
Statistics from 12pm UTC position report:Brad Van Liew: 3,004.3; 0; 142.7; 5.9
Gutek: 3,165.1; 160.8; 132.8; 5.5
Derek Hatfield: 3,590; 585.7; 108.1; 4.5
Chris Stanmore-Major: 3,759.2; 754.9; 131.3; 5.5
Christophe Bullens: 5,200.1; 2,195.7; 7.6; 0.3
From Velux 5 Oceans
