serialsailor

I concur, some hard data would help. Symbio, I thought you had some. Where are those polars?

No, or show it to us. If you have both IDEC's and Gitana's polars now we're having an interesting conversation Idec had an amazing run ahead of ONE system. They stayed on one tack for 11 days, straight along the rhum line, on the low of a lifetime.

Very nice photo of gitana going down a wave. Probably taken before good Hope. It seems hard to keep the boat foiling in any reasonably big sea state.

I've explained at length in a previous post in which conditions I think these boats are faster or not faster than the previous generation. Gitana and Sodebo seems faster in transitional zones, with just enough wind to foil and not much sea state. This makes it easier to switch systems. They are indeed not much faster in heavier conditions because it becomes hard to foil and their foils have to be big enough to lift off in light conditions, making them non ideal for max speed. For example gitana can foil upwind or reaching in 15 knots of wind which is a gain on idec or BPV Gitana max speed doesn't seem better than BPV 10 years ago but the boat overall is faster, the gains are just somewhere else. The fact that this year's 3 runs to date all were faster down the atlantic somewhat shows the gains between idec and Sodebo/gitana, though 4 runs is obviously too small a sample too prove that empirically.

Gévé already means Mainsail for us frenchies (Grand-voile = GV)

I guess you havnt been paying attention to the news, this guy is cosplaying as one of the capitol coup attempt people. The tattoos are neo pagan shit used by some neo nazi groups.

Well we know who funds this challenge.. not a suprise that supporters embrace the same fascist ideology.

I think it might be wrong to think Gitana is much faster than IDEC in all conditions. From what we've seen, it seems Gitana is indeed much faster in medium conditions, because they can get foiling when IDEC couldn't, but i think this gap is reduced in heavy conditions, where foiling becomes complicated and which IDEC with its small mast was optimised for. I still think gitana is a faster boat overall, but that is more due to their excellent speeds in transitional zones with foiling conditions (allowing them to get to another system without slowing down to much which is a big advantage!) than their top high speed averages. We havent seen a boat break the 24 h record in 10 years but i hope Gitana is the one that does it. IDEC's run in the Indian cannot be understated, 6 days at more than 35 knots in front of the low is amazing. It is also hard to beat because you have to stay in the front to have those speeds. It has to have the right speed and travel with you. Maybe some day we'll see Gitana, Sodebo or one of the incoming Ultims sailing several days at 40 knts in the right front but you do have to get really lucky. Gitana in the same low that Idec had a few years ago probably wouldn't have been faster on that amazing run because IDEC never fell behind the front, they just slowed down and gybed when it fizzled out. I remember them saying that it was a lot of work staying in front of the low, and that they almost fell behind at one point, so Gitana might have had an easier time staying in front, but hardly could have gone faster in the same low because the farther forward you are, the less wind there is. Some day we will get boats able to punch in front through the next system, but we haven't seen Gitana do that (yet )

Humeur means mood. Humour is Humor.

noooo

All is good I am being paranoid !

Probably just waiting "à sec de toile" (without sails) wind on the beam and I'm just being paranoid ^^

Again, they might just be waiting, but I feel the boat would be doing 5-10 knots dead downwind

They've been at drifting speeds for half an hour, this might be really bad.

Doing 2 knots in front of Douarnenez, i hope everything is ok..