Global Challenge
Week 1 - Two Gales and a Flat Calm

From the outset, I had made it clear to my skipper, Matt Riddell, that the Global Challenge was not going to be a busman's holiday of a voyage for this Met Office forecaster. Why, after all, forsake all the benefits of life at the BBC Weather Centre, not to mention the salary, for the hazards and uncertainties, and the lack of salary, of life at sea?

I can report that at the end of the first week I have already failed miserably. This may come as a surprise to my colleagues who will perhaps have remembered me as a strong willed sort. OK OK... they said stubborn. I offer the following as an explanation, both to you and myself.

The race start fell on Sunday 3rd October. A fast moving low to the west of the British Isles had offered the potential for gales in exposed areas to the south of its centre. The Solent and western Channel probably qualify on this criteria. The previous few days had been breezy enough but after a deceptively calm start to the day, the breeze increased to become a fresh to strong, southwesterly.

Once off and racing towards The Needles, it was clear that the depression's potential would be fully realised. Gale force winds and choppy seas made for a tough first night when our fine start was lost on crew members succumbing to seasickness.

A quiet midweek took us southwest towards Ushant and then on across Biscay. No great problems here but forecast charts, received via radio broadcast from the Fleet Oceanographic and Weather Centre at Northwood, showed a small but vigorous low forming to the west of Portugal. I offered Matt advise on how best to transit the feature and warned that forecast winds of 40 knots could well be exceeded in squalls and gusts.

Whilst I appreciate that things always seem worse at night, the figures don't lie. Severe gale force 9 winds plus gusts, driving rain and a heavy swell combined to make for hugely testing sailing. Some damage was sustained but all to hardware. The software, and by that I mean the crew, came through virtually unscathed. Several days on and I heard that the same storm, by now in Biscay, had washed containers off the deck of shipping!

Would it now be too much of a cliche to talk of the calm after the storm? Well for once, the phrase is apt. Pressure built after the passage of the low to form a high close to Madeira. Such clement weather would normally have been most welcome but 2 knots of wind has little effect on a 40 ton yacht, and is even less use in terms of a full on Round The World yacht race. One can only hope the competitors on the other eleven yachts have suffered to the same degree.

So there you have it. Two gales and a flat calm in the first week. Who needs the Doldrums or the Southern Oceans to stretch both sailing and forecasting skills? Only nine more months to go. Fares please!