Day 6 – Current
Those of you who have been closely following the YB tracker may have noticed the recent dip in speed of Rowing Stones followed shortly afterwards by the recent increase in speed of Ocean’s Elite. It’s almost as though the crews were playing a video game where their boat goes over a speed booster, and in a way, it does.
Shortly before departure we walked the crews through the local weather forecasts and ocean currents which were predicted during their trip. Obviously the forecast for what the crew can expect around Barbados on arrival will no doubt change but the forecast for the few days following departure are of particular interest. Every day we send the crews an updated forecast which allows them to manage their expectations. There is no way that they can alter their course significantly (in the way sailing boats do) to move away from bad weather but maybe there is a change to reduce the impact of adverse weather by heading a bit off course. The problem often is that to divert will take the crew a significant amount of time which would have been longer than if the crew had simply weathered the storm, waited on the para anchor for a few days and continued.
Weather systems based on air pressure above the water’s surface are fickle, rapidly changing and difficult to forecast. There is a much more powerful series of elements at work below the surface of the waves. Ocean currents are fickle, changeable, often difficult to find and incredibly powerful. Most of the time on this particular route there is no point in chasing currents because by the time you got to a weak patch of current which might afford you half a knot of boost, it may have moved. However, there has been a lovely inviting swirl of current off Gran Canaria for the last few months and it’s really quite powerful. As it’s a ring it means that it’s important that the crew (where possible) pass on the helpful side of it otherwise risk it slowing them down a lot.
We pointed the current swirl out to the crews at the start and have been guiding them towards it all other things being equal. This may also be one of the reasons why they’ve seen such a lot of wildlife in the first week at sea. Rowing Stones have exited this extra helping hand and Ocean’s Elite have just entered into it. This is a rare occurrence though as we’d not expect the crews to find another helpful area of current with this power, for the rest of the trip. So teams enjoy the magic carpet ride while you can as it won’t last forever.
