The remnants of a tropical storm are causing some headaches for the six Volvo Ocean Race crews as they plan their approach to the first ice way point on leg four, approximately 900 miles ahead and to the north. There are some very complex strategy decisions to be made and there is a complicated weather pattern ahead. Already there have been some quite diverging courses which is unusual for this fleet. The decision to be made is immensely intricate and it will be another two days or so before it becomes clear as to which team made the right choices.

Paul Cayard (Pirates of the Caribbean) in fourth place, explains, “Right now we are working our way to the first ice way point and we are going to have some trickiness there which we wouldn’t normally encounter in the southern ocean, because we have to go through a fixed point. There is a big hole in the wind there. There is a cyclone which is hopefully dying slowly, causing a lot of turbulence in the waves and the wind and so we are going to have some very strange winds in the last 12 hours going into that gate. “

At 23.25 GMT yesterday, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) made the decision to take a 43 nautical mile loss and gybe south. They gybed back again at 02.40 GMT this morning and are now the most southerly boat in the fleet, making the best speed and benefiting from bigger breeze.

The tropical storm is making its way south towards the position of the first ice gate, possibly arriving at the same time as the fleet. The options are either to go to the north of it, which would carry the higher risk, or to sail to the south of it, which is what the fleet has decided to do. Sailing to the south of the depression also carries risks. It is possible that the storm may move faster south and the fleet could end up in 40 knots of headwinds in order to reach the ice gate.

The boats furthest north have the shortest distance to the finish in Rio de Janeiro, which puts ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) in the lead. The team is cutting the corner to the ice gate, but is closest to the centre of the depression. The danger in this move is that they may find they run out of wind and need to gybe to get south later which could be very costly.

The drama will be played out over the next 48 hours or so.

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