2014 Melbourne to Vanuatu - START DELAYED

The Start time for the 2014 Melbourne to Vanuatu Ocean Yacht Race has been delayed to 1000 hours on Monday 30 June, 2014 with the Rally Start time 5 minutes later at 1005.

This will not come to the surprise of anyone who has been monitoring Melbourne's weather this week.  With wild weather battering Victoria this week and more on the way, the ORCV Race Management Team has been monitoring weather developments very closely.  With another frontal system due to pass through on Sunday, the original scheduled start time of 0900 Sunday 29 June, 2014 is no longer feasible.  Fortunately the front due on Sunday will be little less intense than the front that came through on Tuesday which caused widespread damage and flooding. 

Skippers of all entrants were notified of delayed start this afternoon.  Changing a scheduled start time for a major blue water classic like the 1,885 nautical mile Melbourne to Vanuatu ocean yacht race involves notifying numerous authorities, including Port of Melbourne, Kordia (who perform Radio Position reporting schedules), AMSA, Coast Guard, ORCV Incident Management Team and the list goes on.

SailOnline.org have also been notified for anyone intending to participate in the Virtual race.

Other arrangements for competitors including Customs Clearance at Docklands at 0900 Saturday 28 June, 2014 and the send-off dinner/party at Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron on Saturday night remain unchanged.

Entrants at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay are likely to take advantage of a favourable y weather window on Saturday to head down the Bay to Blairgowrie after clearing Customs on Saturday morning.  

Our very good friends at Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron have also arranged to accommodate entrants in pens in their marina rather than rafting up in the designated visitor areas - thanks again BYS, your efforts are again very much appreciated!

An official Notice to Competitors will be issued in due course, including revised Pre-Race Sign on sched times etc.

With the weather forecast from Monday onwards, it looks like very fast running conditions will be enjoyed by the fleet.  The race record could be under threat.

ORCV Race Management.

Friday 27 June, 2014

Melbourne to Vanuatu Yacht Tracker

You can use Full screen Yacht Tracker page if you prefer.

Melbourne to Vanuatu VIRTUAL RACE

Don’t forget to enter the www.sailonline.org SOL virtual race as part of the ORCV’s 2014 Melbourne to Vanuatu Race. This is great opportunity to hone your navigation skills and see how you shape up compared to the actual boats in the race. Some more background about SOL below:

SAILONLINE ; ITS HISTORY, ACTIVITIES AND GOALS

The Sailonline concept originated at the Centre for Naval Architecture of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. It was originally intended as a means for students to test their yacht designs. Some seven years ago, the program was made available more generally on the Internet and has since gathered a large following from all around the world. Though free to use and managed entirely by volunteers, it is funded my members who enjoy additional benefits of being part of the SOL family.

Currently thirty-four nationalities are racing and a very wide range of boat polars are available to be chosen as the yacht for a given race including a wide range of racing/cruising monohulls, catamarans and even includes square riggers and a Viking longship!

Sailonline downloads weather information from NOAA every six hours and the boat physics that are employed are highly regarded. Tracker feeds from the actual boats in a race (like the ORCV Melbourne to Vanuatu Race) are overlaid on the course so that participants can compare their navigation efforts with those of the actual competitors. Virtual sailors (or SOLers as they are more affectionately known!) age from 12 to 80’s, men, women and come from all around the world and the virtual race provides a challenge for all levels of experience, from beginners and even an Americas Cup designer routinely tests his skills. A group of remote SOLers actually arranged to meet and sailed the Fastnet race together and SOL are hoping that this will become commonplace among the growing SOL community.

SOL has now evolved from its early roots to a more professionally run organisation, based in several countries but with its head of marketing here in Melbourne (Rob Neilson). Being free to use and community run, SOL is quite unique within the web sports simulation arena and the organisation’s prime goal is to provide a high level of sailing simulation to the sailing fraternity that is fun, competitive and educational.

2014 Melbourne to Vanuatu Weather Outlook – Wednesday 25/6 Update

Four days until the start on Sunday and the prognosis is for this vigorous westerly airstream to continue until at least early next week. The westerly pattern kicked off with a bang on Tuesday, with passage of an intense cut off Low through Bass Strait.

As shown in the satellite pic and aviation sigwx chart updated from the weekend, the Low featured an upper cold pool and a classic hook in the polar jet, enhancing the intensification and delivering severe westerly gales along the Victorian coast. Seas in Bass Strait built up quickly, with the Port of Melbourne Wave Buoy near the Heads measuring significant wave heights of 5m and maximum wave heights of 7m from the southwest by Tuesday afternoon.

For this weekend the pattern sees southwesterly cold fronts lining up along the south coast of the continent in the classic ‘shark fin march’ much vaunted by skiers, which looks set to include a cold front on Sunday and possibly also Saturday, with cold and blustery west/southwesterly winds. The passage of the Sunday cold front is shown on the prognosis map below. A well developed seaway associated with this pattern can be expected in Bass Strait, a key consideration for safe negotiation of the Rip and legs across to the Prom and Gabo.  

Of interest is how fast and in what form the High behind the westerly airstream will migrate to the east towards the Tasman. Early indications from the ACCESS, ECMWF and GFS models (ACCESS for Wednesday 2 July shown below) are that this migration will be relatively slow and centred around 35 S latitudes, and likely to maintain a favorable southerly/southwesterly flow along much of the race track until at least midweek. Further to the west and the Low shown west of WA (on the Sunday prognosis) and south of WA (in the ACCESS Wednesday model) is also a feature to watch, particularly its development and potential for intensification as it moves east. On the weekend we will look at how these systems have changed or progressed enabling a better idea.

Current-wise, CSIRO-IMOS imaging of the eastern seaboard indicate that the East Australian Current is running relatively strong for this time of year, and featuring a number of jets and eddies setting in various directions between Flinders Island and Jervis Bay. Warm water temperatures are persisting off the southern NSW coast of around 20 C.

Andrew Roberts