Simon Fisher says Leg 5 is a tricky test for Azzam and rest of Volvo fleet

The fifth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) from Auckland to Itajai is not only the longest, but traditionally it is also the hardest.

With the leadership of the race so tight, it could also be the leg that separates the contenders from the pretenders.

This leg could end up being about the navigators. Azzam’s man Simon Fisher talks us through the leg’s key navigational spots.

Negotiating Cyclone Pam

It can be quite tricky getting out of New Zealand if conditions are light and difficult.

But it’s actually going to be very windy, so we’ll probably get out of the coast fairly quickly. We’ll do the normal in-shore bit of the leg, which is always good to do well in. Usually we approach it in quite a conservative manner to not do anything stupid on that first day.

The key will be leaving the coast and getting ourselves down into the Southern Ocean. It’s going to be fairly exciting this time because of Cyclone Pam, and that will have a big impact on our race.

Go westerly

Although it will be very windy and conditions will be pretty unpleasant, it will help us get down into the Southern Ocean quite quickly.

Tactically, the priority is to get down south and into the strong westerly.

Once we’re in that strong westerly wind, it’s all about managing the strong weather systems that come through and staying in phase with the weather that is coming through. We have to make sure we’re in enough wind – not too much, not too little. That continues for a couple of weeks as we head into Cape Horn.

Cape Horn

It can be very tricky. There can be temptation, after you’ve spent two weeks in water temperatures that are less than 5°C, that you want to get north quickly.

But often it is best to stay south.

We have a very important decision when we get to Cape Horn about how quickly we turn up north and start heading to Brazil, and that is dictated by how the weather is coming in from the South Atlantic and round the tip of South America.

South American coast

That can be a complex area with the weather.

Lots of low pressures coming through, and because the Andes are such a high mountain range that mixes things up quite a bit and can make it quite tricky.

The weather changes very fast, and managing that bit up past the Falkland Islands is a quite important part of the leg.

The finish

From there, we transition back to warmer weather.

The final part of the leg is, potentially, quite light. We could end up close to the coast trying to find reliable wind.

osamiuddin@thenational.ae