Sunday 21st of October, Horses Latitude, doldrums.

Hervé, which is today in 9th position, is now completely in the middle of the doldrums. It is now 10 days that he is racing, and has completed nearly half of the course.There are 1478 miles left.

We heard that the cumulo-nimbus can be seen from far away. Big dark clouds who appears on the horizon as the Minis are approaching.

This is a special area where the winds from the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere meet. Why Horses Latitudes? Simply because it is at this level that the British ships were becalmed and had to throw the horses over board in order to have enough water to go to the Americas.

In practice the ITCZ is a zone where the winds are extreme: either non-existent or extremely strong with gusts reaching 40 to 50 knots in a few minutes. It is therefore a very difficult zone to sail, as you must be able to take advantage of the least rise and also to always be alert in case a big cumulo-nimbus would blow his wind reserve on you.

Horses latitude is also the area where the cells form: due to the convergence of the trade winds and the strong sun the equatorial area is the source of ascendance movements materialised by the cumulo-nimbus which feed 2 cells of atmospherical circulation (one for the northern hemisphere and another one for the southern hemisphere). When the wind progresses to the North, for example, the air circulation is diverted by the coriolis force (the force which is created by the earth rotation on itself), the air then feeds the sub-tropical jets which are very strong altitude winds blowing to the East or the north-east before coming down and forming the cyclonics areas such as the Açores cyclonic system.

But where is the best place to cross these forces latitudes? Without any weather forecast, except what Herve could get on his small BLU radio, it will be very difficult for him to find the narrowest gap through the zone. It seems however that statistically the best place is to cross between degrees 35 to 40 of longitude west. In summary, Herve will need to be quite lucky!!!