The Ocean Race 2023 leg 3: Capetown to Itajaí, Brazil

[Herman]

Leg 3 from Capetown to Itajaí, Brazil

Leg start Saturday 26th February at 1405 Local Time, which is UTC + 2 hours.

This will the longest racing distance in the 50-year history of the event - a 12,750 nautical mile, one-month marathon to Itajaí, Brazil. The fleet will need to pass all three great southern Capes - the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and Cape Horn - to port, without stopping, for the first time. The Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties of the Southern Ocean are on the route. The Antarctic Ice Exclusion Zone (AIEZ) to their south.

ETA as per TOR: April 1st.

Sailing Instructions Leg 3; Download

TOR info Itajai here: https://www.theoceanrace.com/en/route/itajai

Previous leg 2 thread here; https://forums.sailinganarchy.com/threads/the-ocean-race-2023-leg-2-cabo-verde-to-capetown.240589/

 

[Varan]

Prepare to three-peat, oh wait, double points, four-peat. This is the leg we have been waiting for. Let's watch some new records be made, and please, stay in your boats. Just wish the VO65's would not have weenied out. Would love to see how the strategies and Southern Ocean performance of the different classes of boats compare.

 

[Varan]

IMHO, this leg should be 3x points.

 

[Herman]

Indeed, this leg should be rated with more points.

Scoring as per NOR art 23.1

"The Leg from Cape Town to Itajai shall score double points, scored in two equal parts, as follows: Points will be awarded based on the order in which Boats cross Longitude 143° 00′ E. and points will be awarded based on the order they cross the finishing line in Itajai."

FYI 143° East is just a bit west of Tasmania, named after Abel Tasman.

 

[Varan]

What's pisses me off is a transatlantic leg is worth the same as this leg...
WTF?

 

[despacio avenue]

Remind me why TOR established this very long leg. I recall TOR organizers took a long time to establish the route, due to, in large part, Covid, the ever changing and shrinking number of participants, money, politics. I am guessing they skipped stops in Australia and/or New Zealand due to the uncertainty of Covid restrictions and those countries potentially shutting the door again in the event of another major outbreak, which affected the America's Cup and Sydney-Hobart. Also no stops are scheduled in eg Mainland China or Hong Kong due to Covid restrictions, lack of boats or crew from those countries, political unrest and uncertainty (HK). So there is now one very long leg in an extremely tough environment...,.

 

[shebeen]

Remind me why TOR established this very long leg. I recall TOR organizers took a long time to establish the route, due to, in large part, to Covid, the ever changing and shrinking number of participant, money, politics. I am guessing they skipped stops in Australia and/or New Zealand due to the uncertainty of Covid restrictions and those countries' potentially shutting the door again in the event of another major outbreak, which affected the America's Cup and Sydney-Hobart. Also no stops are scheduled in eg Mainland China or Hong Kong due to Covid restrictions, lack of boats or crew from those countries, political unrest and uncertainty (HK). So there is now one very long leg in an extremely tough environment...,.

Yes, exactly that.

 

[Fabricensis]

Anyone up for predictions? Here's mine:

1. Malizia
2. 11th hour
3. Holcim
4. Biotherm
5. Guyot

 

[cill123]

Guyot ( to pullout a flyer and hold onto it)
11th hour
Biotherm
Holcim
Malizia

Though I think this will be the leg where we see at least 1 boat suffer major damage

 

[yl75]

Ok, here are mines (a bit at random)

1 Biotherm
1 11TH
3 Holcim
4 Malizia
5 Guyot

 

[Herman]

Anyone up for predictions? Here's mine:

1. Malizia
2. 11th hour
3. Holcim
4. Biotherm
5. Guyot

Agree, Malizia has been designed more or less for this leg with her scow bow.

 

[JeronimoII]

Kevin (Holcim) to win again. Biotherm second. The Frenchies have already shown that they know their IMOCA best. Malizia to stop in Oz to get new ear-plugs to cope with the terrible foiling sound. (poor folks... )

 

[JonRowe]

My hope is for a photo finish between Kevin and Boris

 

[Herman]

Pro forma weather routing using

1. OpenCPNs climate plugin with 25 years of NOAA climate data
2. 110% polars
3. 3 hr calculation steps
4. AIEZ based on the Vendee Globe 2020 AIEZ (exclusion zone is not published at the noticeboard)

Projects an ETA on March 29th. +/- 31 days of sailing. Three days earlier than TOR expects.

If I would use the 115% polars the ETA would move a bit forward.

Lots of AIEZ hugging can be expected.

Bring enough food and very warm clothing. Plus for Malizia enough toilet paper and better earplugs.

 

[dg_sailingfan]

We know already that there will be some Crew Changes for Leg 3:
For BIOTHERM Imoca Legend Sam Davies will step aboard replacing Amelie Grassi. Sam Davies for me is sort of the Female Version of Stu Bannatyne when it comes to Southern Ocean Sailing. She absolutely loves these conditions which might bump up Biotherms Performance.

For Holcim-PRB I expect Kevin Escoffier to put Abby Ehler back aboard for Susann Beucke and the reason is that Abby has much more Experience in that part of the world having rounded Cape Hoorn 3 Times with Amer Sports 2 in 2001/2002, Team SCA in 2014/2015 and Team Brunel in 2017/2018. Kevin might also change out Tom Laperche and bring in Fabien Delahaye.

Malizia of course will bring back in Boris Hermann and GUYOT will almost certainly put Benjamin Dutreux back it.

11th Hour Racing Team might change out Justine Mettraux and bring back Francesca Clapcich.

 

[climenuts]

I did a bit of digging into my previous comment about windspeed scaling, @Herman . Stan Honey's approach is/was to scale 10m winds to 125% for high-latitudes, 115% for mid-latitudes, and 110% for trade winds. Boat instruments are usually scaled to 25m to match TP52s which is pretty close to the IMOCAs at 29m.

Source and he talks about it at 42:35:

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

Sam Davies for me is sort of the Female Version of Stu Bannatyne when it comes to Southern Ocean Sailing. She absolutely loves these conditions which might bump up Biotherms Performance.

Sam Davies alone in the Southern Ocean.

 

[wildbirdtoo]

We know already that there will be some Crew Changes for Leg 3:

For Holcim-PRB I expect Kevin Escoffier to put Abby Ehler back aboard for Susann Beucke and the reason is that Abby has much more Experience in that part of the world having rounded Cape Hoorn 3 Times with Amer Sports 2 in 2001/2002, Team SCA in 2014/2015 and Team Brunel in 2017/2018. Kevin might also change out Tom Laperche and bring in Fabien Delahaye.

Abby Ehler isn't coming back till after Itajai (according to her Bar Karate interview a couple of weeks ago- unless of course things have changed: https://www.buzzsprout.com/392416/1...straight-from-winning-leg-1-of-the-ocean-race

 

[Herman]

I did a bit of digging into my previous comment about windspeed scaling, @Herman . Stan Honey's approach is/was to scale 10m winds to 125% for high-latitudes, 115% for mid-latitudes, and 110% for trade winds. Boat instruments are usually scaled to 25m to match TP52s which is pretty close to the IMOCAs at 29m.

Source and he talks about it at 42:35:

That is an excellent find, thanks for sharing! Worth watching for anyone interested in navigation. Stan is a good narrator with examples from his own experience

 

[terrafirma]

Anyone up for predictions? Here's mine:

1. Malizia
2. 11th hour
3. Holcim
4. Biotherm
5. Guyot

This looks more like a "WISH" list rather than predictions.! Malizia winning.?? You wish...! LOL