In this subject, we'll talk about getting out of Barcelona, down to Mediterranean, into the strait of Gibraltar. It's very important to understand that the Mediterranean is a landlocked body of water, meaning it has no real direct contact with the sea. There are only two direct contacts, one is the Strait of Gibraltar, Pillars of Hercules very narrow, not very deep. There's another one that's even worse, which is Strait of Suez. All this is part of the Mediterranean. A few rivers coming into it. In Rome, the main one the Po, the water coming from the Alps, but it's not enough to correct all the evaporation that's going on. As you see, here we've got North of Africa, is all pretty hot specially in summer. Lot of evaporation going on making the Mediterranean a very salty sea. The ocean, which is out here tries to correct that. We'll talk about later on but we'll see it has a major implications on currents. The other thing is important to realize is that it is landlocked and weather gets a lot more complicated ones land gets evolved. In the middle of the ocean, weather forecasting is lot easier than being close to the shore. Okay. So the river starts from Barcelona right here in Spain, Catalonia. Protected by the Pyrenees, big mountain ridge over here and protected by the whole of Spain. You can see here on the map that any green surface here in Galicia, France. But once we get into Spain, it gets drier and drier as we go east and we're protected from the Atlantic weather. Right now zoom out to first part of the course. We go from Barcelona to the Strait of Gibraltar. It's the only way out. You can see that the course will change quite often. Here, here, here, Cabogata and then onto Gibraltar. A few islands in the way which could become an obstacle or it could be an opportunity, and always the choice here. Are we going for the wind offshore, the gradient wind? Thinking that there's no land or do we go for local effects? The sea breeze is during the day. That as land heats up, it gets a sea breeze onto the coast but only extends 10 maybe 15 miles. Land breeze is in the night. Even smaller distance, as land cools down the air starts gliding down, katabatic winds they call it. But normally, you have to be right into the beach to get that. Then eventually, we end up here in the Alboran sea. Here it becomes difference in that, the Strait of Gibraltar has massive venturi effects. Any easterly winds gets strongly accelerated, any westerly wind gets strongly accelerated. Inside the strait, normally are suddenly winds, are extremely rare if not impossible. It always gets channeled by the strait and accelerated. But this is a side view from Gibraltar Strait. Gibraltar itself is over here. But then go down, well, down west to the coast, you can see this mountain ranges over here and Spanish mainland. If I go back a little bit, Gibraltar over there. Go over to the other sides, we'll end up in Morocco. As you see, on the Moroccan side, it's all pretty mountainous as well. That is what is causing this channeling effect, this venturi effect. Always more wind in Gibraltar or just on the other side of it, where the wind blows out of it and then funnels out basically like a big fun. It's like the thing you use to light your chimney back at home. So this Gibraltar Strait, see from the top. The arrows you see here is currents. The color is intensity, red is more intense. As I've said before, it's very complicated currents in Gibraltar. In general, as the water evaporates in the Mediterranean, that water has to be resupplied. It comes from the ocean. So on the surface, there's a general east outgoing current, coming from the ocean going into the Mediterranean. Below that, the boats can't use that, there is a current going from east to west as the water in Mediterranean is saltier, heavier, and therefore flowing out more or less by gravity. The old Phoenicians used to use that. They used to dropped shells down in the water, very deep with stones and they would let himself be dragged out by the currents deep down towards the ocean. As you will see for some of the competitors, it's really hard to deal with this current, if you get there at wrong time with no wind. Here's just little animation for you see how the currents intensifies. Current intensifies with the actual minimal movements like normal tides. You can see here that as the tide goes up and down, those currents although they stay in general west to east direction, they get more intense and less intense. The other thing that complicates is that there are veins of currents. Sometimes it's good to get really close in to Gibraltar, really close into the coast. Sometimes you have to be in the middle. Sometimes you have to be on American coast. It's a big head current shift for the navigators on board or skippers. So here the boats have just left Barcelona. At the moment, they can go anywhere they like, but all have to come back together here, to go through the narrow exit, Gibraltar Strait. Straight line, there is no need to go and look for wind at the beach. Which is good because it's a bit of a detour. As we go forward, we can see there's a little bit of jiving going on here, little bit of hesitation on what to do with the Ibiza by the green boat over here. First, they thought they're going to go to the east of it, then they realized was a bad plan. They came back. As you see here, the leading bus have picked up a little bit of wind in the coast of Valencia and these boats went light for a little while. So here they've already lost a part few miles, which could be very expensive later on. I think any competitor leaving Barcelona is not concerned about being the first boat out of Gibraltar. What's most important is to not get left behind. Be in touch with the leaders. It is the Mediterranean, weather forecasting in Mediterranean is complicated at best. With all those landmass here, local breezes, currents, and all that sort of stuff, anything can happen. People will be relieved once they get out of here, out in the open ocean, and have more control over their destiny. The beginning part is the most complicated. All right. So let's go forward. You can see that the options have been limited. They all have to make the right-hand turn. We're going to Gibraltar, so as you go here today and it's 10 degrees here, there's another 20 degrees that goes right. So the option to go offshore is quite limited here as you keep on going right. Once we get into the mere, the Alboran sea which is down south here between Morocco and Spain, we'll see that the options open a little bit. So here you can see we've got in Spanish it's called pamienta. Which means it's breezed from the West when the sun goes down, pamienta. It's been accelerated here through the strait, and here people will try to find something different on one of the coast. If you go in the middle, you're in the middle of the currents going that way. The breeze will be pretty much that west meaning full beat. If you go to the sides, as it funnels out, maybe on the Spanish coast you can find the breeze further left, more towards the southwest and make longer port like short starboard tags and the other way around on a Moroccan coast. That's a decision navigators have to make now. As you can see here, it clearly seems to be paying off on a Moroccan side of life. I'll zoom in a bit more. As those boats have found more breeze, they managed to get ahead of those boats and they're the first ones to reach Gibraltar. If they manage to get through there first, they're in good shape. So there we go, boats at the northern part of the Alboran sea have lost massively. The boats that went to the Moroccan coast have done very well. The first boat is now entering into the strait. As we've seen before, the strong currents here in the strait, so it's all a matter of timing now. You can't control when you get there, and when you get there, the currents that are there is what you get. It all depends on the moon phase. If the tide has reinforced the currents or if you're getting your slack tide then it's easy to get through. So there's a bit of luck involved. The only thing you can do beforehand is try to be one of the first boats to get here. So no one could get away. Here we see these boats go through fairly easily. No problem. As we go further down, we can see that here it really got complicated for these boats. These boats, the breeze went light, there was not enough wind to sail fast enough to beat the current. Sometimes you can actually sail in the water but you're sailing through the water, let's say, three knots in very light airs. If that water at the same time is moving the other way at three-and-a-half knots, although you're moving through the water, the whole body of water you're in is moving further away from the distance than you can make up for it. Then it actually pays off to put the anchor. Almost impossible to put the anchor in Gibraltar because its 100, 200, 300 meters deep. So you see some boats here actually going backwards. Lets see, try to show you again. You can see here the black boat actually going backwards and struggling really. There, finally they get out. So what I spoke about before, you not so concerned about being the first boat out. You're very concerned about not losing touch with leaders. Some the boats here have already lost touch with leaders, and for them it's going to be very long race around the world.
