Global Challenge
Week 31 - Stopover in Cape Town

I suspect most of those who sign up for the Global Challenge do so to experience the Southern Oceans. You may remember that our course has already taken us from Buenos Aires, via Cape Horn, to Wellington, New Zealand. As if that was not enough, Sydney to Cape Town provided another 7000 nm of cold, wet and very windy sailing. The weather was always going to play a huge part on this leg, perhaps the manner in which it did so may have surprised some.

Way back in October 2004, Crew Volunteers believed that ten months of perpetual summer lay ahead of them. Just as autumn and winter set into the northern hemisphere, so the fleet would be slipping south of the equator to catch the first decent days of summer in South America.

Buenos Aires did not disappoint but as the fleet headed further south, so the number of sunny days diminished and we were faced with unrelenting grey skies. There were surprisingly few rainy days despite the amount of cloud, but these conditions, when combined with falling temperatures and big seas, made for some tough days en route.

The leg from Sydney to Cape Town produced very similar conditions. The weather in Sydney had been a mixture of mainly sunny days with just a few spectacular thunderstorms thrown in to keep the forecasters on their toes. Once we sailed south of Tasmania, however, we passed south of the main high pressure areas that brings southern Australia its summer, we fell into the latitudes where mobile lows dominate. Wind strengths rarely exceded 50 kts (thankfully) but the passage, for the most part, was marked by high average wind speeds and long, heavy swells.

It was only when the fleet began to close on South Africa that the weather played its final joker of the leg. The Great Circle route, i.e. the shortest distance between Sydney and Cape Town, had taken us well south into the Roaring Forties. This is an area dominated by low pressure and renowned for its winds. Cape Town, however, lies further north and is very much influenced by high pressure, particularly at this time of year.

The pattern of highs transiting from west to east across southern Africa, almost in the manner of a lava lamp, is well known. The development of these highs produces very little wind and had a dramatic effect on the finish of the race. One yacht had maintained a lead for much of the leg, but failed to finish in the top three thanks to the gusts of the wind in the last two days.

What, therefore, of my team? We battled with a rival over the last few miles only to be becalmed in the shadow of Table Mountain. One puff of breeze and a slick hoisting of their spinnaker saw them across the line 0.5 nm ahead of us. All this after 7000 nm. The weather's a funny old thing at times.