The dreaded doldrums by Alan Roberts

Before we get into the doldrums we just want to check you are following the Vendée Globe!

It’s really easy – visit the website and you have the online tracker as well as daily updates on the Vendée live show that gives a glimpse into the world of how solo sailors are living offshore in their carbon cocoons.

Now the fleet is currently approaching ‘the doldrums’, wait, I’ve heard of that … what is it again?

The doldrums is a low pressure band that is basically the meteorological passage from the northern to the southern hemisphere.

It is a point at which the sea is heated the most by the sun, which means the water evaporates and rises, causing a lot of humidity in the air. As the air rises it cools forming big clouds that don’t move very fast, these clouds continue to get bigger until they fill up and start to rain and can become full of static that generates thunderstorms. The winds around these clouds can be very unstable, with squalls of wind in front of the clouds and big zones of no wind under or behind them. Get it right and you get a boost that will send you down south fast, get stuck behind one and it’s like your sat nav in a traffic jam that could last for hours watching the other competitors sail off! Frustrating!!

So basically, it’s a tricky spot of the race course, the boats will compress, some people may make big gains and others big losses and then when they exit the doldrums in the south the leaders should extend.

As we can see there are different approaches to tackling this passage.

Boats further east hope to cut the corner, to cross the light winds and have a nice angle to be able to sail low and fast into the southern hemisphere towards the next meteorological phenomena.

Boats in the west hope to cross the doldrums at its narrowest point, skirt along the Brazilian coast and get into down wind conditions ahead of the boats in the east.

Their positioning is a risk v reward, conservative v active, short term gains v long term gains question.. I know, a lot of questions, well that’s the sport of sailing… a lot of data, a lot of predictions, analysis and then decisions.

Clarisse has done a great job so far to get through the light wind spots without her big down wind sail and stay in contact with the leading group. She will be going into the doldrums right alongside Sam Davis and Justin Mettreux, they are setting up to have a good battle!

Other boats to watch out for in the leading group are;

Vulnerable (could be one of two boats – but this one is skippered by Sam Goodchild) – he has sailed a brilliant race to date, solid decisions, good rhythm, boat speed is up there and has manged to always slip away from his competitors.

Macif, Charal & Arkea Paprec – these are three new & fast boats, and they will be looking to use their speed now to hammer down towards the Southern Ocean.

Vulnerable ( the other one skippered by Thomas Ruyant) & Holcim – they have chosen to position themselves further west, will they be able to keep more wind and pop out ahead of the boats to their east?

Further back the battle for the dagger board boats is also interesting to follow, these boats have a different philosophy, some older generation, their design is less targeted around ultimate top speeds and more around been able to sail closer to lower relative to the wind (VMG angles).

They are all quite close and will have an interesting battle across the doldrums and into the south.

For now the skippers will be hating the heat, any chocolate they have will be melting, but soon they will be dreaming of it getting warm again when they are in the cold, wet and windy Southern Ocean.