The Ocean Race 2023 leg 3: Capetown to Itajaí, Brazil

[climenuts]

I hesitate to bring this subject up again, but, if they are spending $5-10 million on a boat, why they have to shit in a bucket.

Because they spent the budget on the boat and they need to carry the bucket anyway.

 

[Qtrfoil]

And it doen´t need to shit in a bucket

I thought it...

 

[timotheysski]

From a lot of what I'm reading it's becoming accepted that the auto-pilot steers better than a human can: it never gets distracted and it doesn't need to sleep or eat. I would think the boat senses in six degrees of freedom and the question for the helmsman is probably "How hard are you willing to ride and how much risk are you willing to take?"

I think it depends on context. Pilots customized to a boat's behavior and supplemented with machine learning and fiber optic sensors and all the bells and whistles, sure likely.
But boats like the Figaro which have the high-end NKE Gyropilot 3 as standard, which is about the best "consumer-grade" pilot you can get that uses traditional electronics for input (wind, compass, speedo, gyro, the usual instruments), and those guys still find it faster to steer by hand most of the time, especially in light air (but admittedly that's a weak spot across the board for autopilots).

 

[Fiji Bitter]

Nobody here seems to know much about the current autopilots, and just a few of you make some sense.
And neither do I, but I do remember that 11th hour has B&G as a sponsor partner, and Charlie Enright said they were working closely together on the AP.
Mind you, the President and CEO of B&G/Navico is Knut Frostad, a 4x race veteran and then one of the most successful race CEO's they ever had.

This short video may enlighten you somewhat:

 

[dg_sailingfan]

Wow, looks like HOLCIM-PRB found the wind for the moment and reeling Boris & Malizia a bit in.

 

[Meric]

Another small drift from the race, but still leg 3 related :

I just scrolled down Malizia's grafana to find out that CO2 ppm went totally off the range they pre-determined for the graph , since a few days.

I wonder if it's a finding that may be surprising the scientists receiving this, or a sensor defect.
According to socat.info the latest available data was in the 350-420 ppm range in this region.

The very scarce number of dots on socat.info in the southern ocean also shows that the sensors embarked on the 4 IMOCAs are not only for communication purposes...
(take my comments with caution, i'm absolutely no ocean scientist, these are just 5-minutes-google observations).

 

[Swanno]

These next few days look like an absolute head fuck for naviguessors.

Its either sub 10 knots or blowing 35 knots from one of the directions...

TM are doing exactly what they need to do at the tic and staying between their opposition and the finish line.

 

[c-h-r-i-s]

 

[Goodvibes]

Just watched the latest video on the TM channel.

Those boats are now unsafe for humans. The crashing for someone with concussion is hard to watch.

They have to fly or slow down. It's getting silly.

 

[noaano]

I just scrolled down Malizia's grafana to find out that CO2 ppm went totally off the range they pre-determined for the graph , since a few days.

Could of course be an anomaly, but I would put my money on sensor / sensing pump / filter etc failure.

Wonder if they have multiple voting for the result like in diving?

 

[Herman]

These next few days look like an absolute head fuck for naviguessors.

Indeed. When backtesting the wx routing for yesterday 2045Z, you can clearly see that Team Malizia drafted their own plan and more or less went straight north. And skipped the suggested more easterly routing by both GFS and ECMWF.

 

[Broadside]

The leading boats are contending with changing conditions that don't really seem to reflect the models/forecasts. I'm losing way too much time this morning following TM's live feed. It speaks for itself....

 

[grandsoleil]

Indeed. When backtesting the wx routing for yesterday 2045Z, you can clearly see that Team Malizia drafted their own plan and more or less went straight north. And skipped the suggested more easterly routing by both GFS and ECMWF.


View attachment 582570

Boris sais yesterday they were heading west to avoid the strong winds (potentially up to 50 knots) of the low pressure. He expected Holcim to do the same.

 

[Goodvibes]

And then I watched the HOLCIM-PBR video and that shit is bullshit.

Nobody should be asked to take that bashing.

 

[NZK]

Another small drift from the race, but still leg 3 related :

I just scrolled down Malizia's grafana to find out that CO2 ppm went totally off the range they pre-determined for the graph , since a few days.

View attachment 582562

I wonder if it's a finding that may be surprising the scientists receiving this, or a sensor defect.
According to socat.info the latest available data was in the 350-420 ppm range in this region.

View attachment 582566

The very scarce number of dots on socat.info in the southern ocean also shows that the sensors embarked on the 4 IMOCAs are not only for communication purposes...
(take my comments with caution, i'm absolutely no ocean scientist, these are just 5-minutes-google observations).

There's a fairly decent article from The Guardian about the buoy deployment and also onboard sensors being used during this leg and how interesting it is for ocean and climate scientists

‘It’s win-win’: how a dangerous sailing race could reveal the ocean’s secrets

After a long hiatus, the epic Ocean Race is back – but this year the teams are gathering crucial data from places even research vessels rarely reach

www.theguardian.com

 

[Rainbow Spirit]

And now the tracker is acting up, again... No boat info when you click on the boats...

 

[Herman]

Backtesting Biotherm and 11th Hour Racing Team polars
I decided to further power-down their polars when looking at the projected and actual locations for 0740Z. Team Malizia and Holcim-PRB still @ 90%.

Guyot still @ 100% of 2015 IMOCA polars.

 

[huey 2]

 

[littlechay]

I recall during the last Ocean Race, you helped out 11th Hour with their dismasting and detour to the Falklands where you put them in touch with your brother and they jury-rigged a mast to get them to Itajai.

Not my brother but a mate and some of his mates made it all happen. I had my feet up somewhere warmer

 

[Fabricensis]

Antoine fits so well into Team Malizia, either they got really lucky with that match or someone smart has spotted this dynamic