Our navigator, Jean-Luc, told us the clouds 80 miles away indicated the start of the Doldrums. We were sailing in such nice wind that when we arrived to the clouds they were exactly like the ones in the satellite picture.
The bungee effect started after 15.00 UTC – we could see “Dongfeng” again in the horizon, after it had got away from the us and the rest a while before.
Little by little in 20 knots downwind we got closer to the Chinese boat. We saw them having some difficulties, but those ended up being wind potholes.
“We are surfing the waves down quicker than the wind”, shouts André Fonseca after the spinnaker goes flat due to the lack of wind, and the apparent wind fills it in again from the other side.
The boat was constantly stopped by the wind holes, like when on a plane in a turbulence area, where it keeps going but moves from one side to the other, from hole to hole.
On top of this there’re loads of seaweed, it’s unbelievable, something must have gone wrong. They creep up and remain hanging from the lifelines. “They look like lettuces. Today we’ll have freeze-dried food and salad for dinner”, says Carlos Hernández.
We followed “Dongfeng”’s trail and passed the first big line of clouds, in some rain and really unsteady breeze we managed to dodge another line of bad looking ones. Most concerning in these cases is if you fall in the trap and can’t get out for several hours losing lots of miles.
After the cloud “Dongfeng” was to our bow, “Brunel” to windward, and “Abu Dhabi”, which came back like a Phoenix, 10 miles behind to windward.
We peeled from the A3 to the MH0 and from the MH0 to the A3. We are, again, in a battle with “Dongfeng” – in a sea full of weed…
#vamosMAPFRE!!!
Francisco Vignale, OBR