While Rice says that races are rarely won and lost in the Southern Ocean, he does not dismiss the place out of hand. Let s not forget that in the last Vendee Globe, Gerry Roufs was in second place before he disappeared in the most remote corner of the South Pacific. He was better able to react to changing wave - although Adams confesses that he was hand steering to survive, rather than to gain miles. Rice also notes that while routing both ENZA and Sport-Elec in the last two Jules Verne record breaking voyages, there were occasions in the South Pacific where skipper and crew had to make radical moves to get around weather features. The most obvious routing concern is to avoid diving too far south.
Skippers do it in the first place because to save distance.
Weather routers express equal concern when skippers sail south because they risk getting caught on the wrong side of a storm. The violence of a rough sea state pitted against the background swell of the Southern Ocean is best described by Tony Bullimore in his book Saved . He described waves peaking to incredible heights before splitting , with water running down both the front and back faces. If something like that doesn t scare the shit out of you well, you may not be human. They just keep going forward, whatever the cost.