Global Challenge
Week 20 - From Wellington to Sydney

Wellington to Sydney was the route for leg three of the Global Challenge yacht race. Although eight days at sea was never going to be as daunting as the two long Southern Ocean legs. The importance of weather in tactics was always going to make this a fairly tense affair for me as 'weatherman', and so it was to prove.

Tension was high right from the start of the leg. Wellington is notorious for the strength and consistency of its winds. Whilst I was on a tour of South Island, during the stopover, winds in excess of 90 mph had affected the harbour one evening. The harbour is also a very confined space in which to race twelve, 72 ft yachts!

Race day provided a relatively benign 12-17 kt winds for the most part, but there were still fun and games when the team rounded the northern mark in the harbour and raised the spinnaker for the run south out of the harbour and out into the Cook Strait. Just when we didn't need it, the wind exceded 20 kts. The boat broached i.e. heeled over and rounded up into the wind, all with a partially inflated spinnaker. That little drama was soon sorted and we managed to leave the confines of the harbour in first place.

This was soon lost on entry into 'The Wind Factory'. Local yachtsmen had told me of this particular area on the southern shores of North Island, where north to northwsterly winds can suddenly increase by 15 kts. I suspect that this is due to a funnelling effect. Whatever the cause it held true for us and caused a problem or two as we changed sail plan.

The weather pattern across the Tasman Sea would be very familiar to weather followers in Britain. At this time of year, the height of summer has passed and so settled spells of weather, provided by high pressure, are occasionally interrupted by the passage of lows, bringing wetter and windier conditions. The brief from the New Zealand Met Service had indicated that predominantly light wind conditions would be interrupted by two windier periods.

As the race progressed, so successive forecasts showed that this wind pattern was likely to hold true. Such consistency in forecasts is a dream come true for weathermen and it allowed me to advise my crew's skipper, Matt Riddell, with a great deal of confidence. Matt is from Sydney and has a wealth of local sailing knowledge. My advice to him, however, went somewhat against the accepted wisdom in these waters.

It looked like strong northerly winds early in the leg would push the fleet south, but this would soon be balanced by a run of south to southwesterlies. I hoped that many yachts would allow themselves to be forced back towards the route of shortest distance i.e.along the rhumb line. I urged Matt, however, to stay south because the forecast indicated another run of southerlies on our approach to Sydney. It would be better to run before these rather than battle into them from the north. Considerations about the strength of the east Australia current also came into play. This flows at up to 4kts from north to south along the coast. Despite this, I still felt south was best.

And the outcome? Matt took the advice and we achieved a very creditable sixth place. All the yachts who beat us came at Sydney from the south but had, by luck and judgment, managed to avoid some of the flukes of wind that impeded our progress. Some of the boats that had tried a more northerly route came unstuck and finished many hours behind the rest of the fleet.

I felt more drained after this short leg than the previous 7000 nm from Buenos Aires, probably because of the constant pressure of yachts in view. I only hope that the last of the Australian summer, with temperatures around 30°C here in Sydney, will help recharge the batteries before the long, cold haul to Cape Town.