Vendee Globe 2020

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tama_manu

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In the last sched, we passed the reference time from the last edition, 74 d 03 h 36 min,  with over 2,000 miles left for the leaders.  Interesting that Burton is sailing the boat that set that time.  

 
staysail

staysail

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Really disappointed with the Antoine Mermod interview in Le Telegramme. Why on earth can't people resist the temptation to impose rules and restrictions? He should be concentrating on deleting the rules which are not helping anyone any longer and are bad for future events. Imposing new rules is the last thing this event in particular needs.

The real attraction of the Imoca class and the VG for me and many others has always been that it encouraged development of seaworthy long distance race boats and was the antithesis of a one-design.

Don't let the organisers and the class association take over from where innovative designers should be in charge! It is already completely obvious that the one-design mast makes no sense any longer now foils are being used and really, what logic now to the one-design keel as far as anything other than materials issues are concerned? None whatsoever! It is now the boats which break due to keel and rig loadings! Do we really want Imoca's to morph into VOR 65 one-designs? Slippery slope.

The solution to the question about limiting foil size/power is obvious. Revert to an "open" style box rule for them.. Having a natural limit on the RM from foils is easy. All they need to do is set a beam limit beyond which no appendage may project. Then leave it up to the skipper and his design house to decide what size and shape and movements to adopt. Imposing a rule based on a hypothetical static moment on an adjustable dynamic lifting surface is just about as daft as it sounds!

Similarly with regard to lifting rudders there are so many problems to solve in that area when you consider the boat must be operable single handed, and get round the world! what is the point in having any other rule apart from the box?

The ice limit question was also addressed with some sensible observations but not the sensible conclusion. The ice line has severely limited skipper tactical freedom, (against safety, Beyou) has forced them into terrible seastates and made the Southern Ocean sailing boring and predictable. People I have talked with about this feel the ice gate system was far better.  Mermod says, "There is no quick fix, but everyone agrees that we should not go play with ice cream. We therefore need safeguards"!. No! If "everyone agrees we should not go play with ice cream" and he includes skippers with "everyone", then no rule is necessary. Information about the whereabouts of ice is now better and more available than ever before. Does a VG skipper really need protecting from him/herself? Skippers I know are for sure already frightened enough by the risks of accidental collisions, UFOs, big soft objects etc. that they are not going to be looking for a self-inflicted wound in iceberg territory at 30 kts!

Similar head-in-sand approach to electric power. Personally I like it in principle and I think technically potential exists for an electrically propelled boat to be faster and more efficient than one with a gasoil engine but that is not yet. Electric boat propulsion systems on the market are pathetic, still in back in the dark ages. Just let electric propulsion take over if and when it becomes technically competitive.

[SIZE=11pt]Any pretense that an Imoca project is climate friendly (if you worry at all about such things), is a joke anyway,  [/SIZE]total greenwashing nonsense. Let's just concentrate on what is best for a seaworthy long distance single handed raceboat and keep designers and skippers free to create them.

 
H

Herman

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oioi said:
Thanks Herman, fast downwind and reaching finish,  mostly on starboard.  I think Louis Burton is favourite but Boris Hermann and Yannick Bestehaven have an outside chance on the basis that both Apivia and Linkedout others have port foil damage. 
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As @b3nharris showed in the table with time adjustments above, Burton, Herrmann and Bestaven projected to finish within 1 hour after adjustments. That too close to call a winner, but my money would be on Burton. 

 
stief

stief

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Giancarlo's log. Didn't talk about his engine troubles until now.

There is one thing I haven't talked about, which happened after Cape Horn. Throughout the Great South , I had a hard time starting the engine. Probably due to low temperatures, the lack of additional additives in the diesel fuel that could help simplify the first combustion, or perhaps some operating problem of the glow plugs . The fact is that, in order not to take any risks, I started the engine every 6 hours throughout the Great South , never letting it cool . The engine is a fundamental element of a sailboat. It is forbidden to use it to navigate, but it is essential to recharge the batteries . And provide electricity.

Energy is essential

Without electricity, our boat becomes unmanageable, it becomes a completely adrift vehicle . Without energy there is no more autopilot, there is no more communication, there is no computer, we no longer have the position of our boat or that of others, we no longer have drinking water. Without energy, only danger remains. Danger of sailing blind. Battery charging systems are essential, and if so is Prysmian Groupit is equipped with two hydrogenerators, one of which is capricious and unreliable, the main battery charging system, the one without which it is not possible to continue, is the engine. To save diesel, after Cape Horn, in a moment of tranquility, I decided to use hydro generators for 24 hours. During this time, the engine cooled completely and when I went to start it, it wouldn't start. The hydrogenerator was not working at that time, because the speed of the boat was not enough. When I tried to start the engine, when I pushed that switch and the engine didn't start, when despite all of myself I asked the engine to please start and he didn't, there I had a real thrill of fear. An uncontrollable reaction of despair, darkness and fear all mixed together, not caused by the possibility of losing my life, but by a possibility that life showed me at that moment: the possibility of not finishing the race . At that moment I felt the full load of energy invested in this project, on my part, by the sponsors, by all those who worked and who work with me. See everything waver, generated a kind of cerebral Short Circuit in me. Finally, fortunately, the engine started and only a huge fright remained of this. And that fright, a bit like the madeleine soaked in tea of which Proust spoke in "In Search of Lost Time", brought back the memory of the panic, of the only time I experienced it. My first and for now only panic.

My first panic

I am seven years old, I am sitting in the back seats of my father's Juliet, we go home after visiting family friends. My father parks, I get out of the car with my mother who takes me by the hand to cross. A scooter goes by with two people a few centimeters from us and my mother 's bag is snatched . My body stiffens and petrifies. I remember the noise of the scooter, the scream of my mother, I see my father sprinting to chase them, I remember the scent of the interior of the Giulietta, the smell of the burnt mixture of the scooter accelerating at full speed. They are my mother's despair, my father's anger and my petrifaction at the same time. It was there that I first encountered panic, that I shook his hand to get to know him. I was just a kid and it took me by surprise. Fear opened the door for him and he took possession of me in half an instant. Since that day I have seen it again, but in this journey that is the Vendée Globe I relived in memory, the feeling I felt and that I know I could have felt. Because panic always accompanies fear, always tries to come and see you. I classify panic as a fear so great that it immobilizes, does not allow to add anything else. It crystallizes and petrifies. When panic invades you, you remain immobilized, with no chance to act, lost in your troubled thoughts more than a stormy ocean. When the engine didn't work, I didn't give the panic time to come knocking on my door : I immediately took action. I called the person on my team who is responsible for the engine on the ground as well as the technicians of the engine manufacturer himself, who immediately activated and with whom we immediately began to speculate until we found a solution.
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gtrans snipped (pics at link) from Corrier della Sera

 
stief

stief

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staysail said:
Let's just concentrate on what is best for a seaworthy long distance single handed raceboat and keep designers and skippers free to create them.
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Can agree with many of these points, but also disagree with many parts.  If you just want to post a manifesto and rant, fine. If you're asking for a reasonable discussion, fine too. I just have zero interest in an ad-hominem shitfight. I'll leave that to others.

 
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staysail

staysail

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I would like to see discussion on these points here on SA. From a very recent chat with a closely involved friend these are very much live topics. Opinions on SA are not all ignored.

 
stief

stief

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The ice problem could well be the most likely to be dropped or changed. Mike Golding, Conrad Humphreys, and Pete Goss (and more, but would have to check) all have noted the problem. This edition was 'mild' in the south.

Given the apparent cheapness of getting data to and from the fleet, and that the JVT boats manage with no limits (not sure about he Australian rescue limit, though), allowing shore based ice routing or the actual data itself to be available equally to all skippers,  might help free them up from unnecessary barriers.

Frankly though, can't see the skippers nor the organizers increasing the chance of failed or futile rescue attempts. The ice barrier is not only about ice.

 
stief

stief

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Sad news, but hope the skippers get a virtual welcome they can cherish

Vendée Globe. Arrival behind closed doors, the public banned from village

Decidedly, this edition of the Vendée Globe is unlike any other and the finish will not be sprained. This Thursday, the organization of the race announced that the finish would be behind closed doors, without an audience in the village. No big party on the village therefore. As for the channel, it could also be banned from the public, but the Prefecture has not yet communicated about it.

The organization of the Vendée Globe has decided. The finish of the race will be played behind closed doors and without an audience in the village because of the context of the health crisis that persists in France. "The Vendée Globe complies with the authorities' requests. The finish of the Vendée Globe will be played behind closed doors in the village, which will be closed to the public. Only people working on the event, including the media, will be able to access it. No public on the village therefore.

What about the ascent of the channel? The Prefecture of Vendée has not yet communicated a decree concerning any ban. Interviewed by our colleagues from France 3 Pays de la Loire, Yannick Moreau, the Mayor of Les Sables-d'Olonne nevertheless expressed his wish that the Sablais could welcome sailors as tradition requires: "I hope that sailors who have travelled around the world can be welcomed, it is a bit of a right for them and a duty for us. I hope that we can find a compromise between respecting sanitary gestures and at the same time having a little audience on the channel because they deserve it. "
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Safari trans of V&V article by Laurene COROLLER.Published on 01/21/21 at 7:55 pm

 
stief

stief

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Bebmoumoute said:
Another good article on how to deal with the return on land and sometimes its unforeseen circumstances.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sports/voile/vendee-globe/j-ai-mis-trois-ans-a-m-en-remettre-quand-les-skippers-rentres-du-vendee-globe-plongent-dans-l-amer_4255921.html#xtor=CS2-765-[share]-
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Yes. So maybe some of the skippers will be relieved not to face the crowds.

Pip's schedule will be tough, but from her media ability and background, she's likely to handle it well. She'd know about Ellen MacArthur.and Chabaud, 

"I fought for her team to lighten its schedule of media and commercial interventions," sighs Alain Gautier, who advised her at the time. His sponsor really pulled too hard on the rope. I sounded the alarm, but to no avail." Did you say burn-out? "We wrung out our Anglo-Saxon feat, to the last drop," added skipper Catherine Chabaud, also at the start of the 2000 edition, who remained close to the British. The young skipper transformed into a sandwich woman with her defending body prematurely ended her career a handful of races later. "The balance was no longer respected," says Alain Gautier. She did too much, in too little time."
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Who, on a quick check, didn't fade away

Since becoming a Member of the European Parliament, Chabaud has been serving on the Committee on Development. In addition to her committee assignments, she is part of the European Parliament Intergroup on Seas, Rivers, Islands and Coastal Areas[6] and the MEPs Against Cancer group.[7]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Chabaud

 
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jackolantern

jackolantern

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Way I see it, with big breeze coming in from behind, I see Boris as being able to bring breeze in from behind and compress against Louis in order to win on time allowance. 

 
Hitchhiker

Hitchhiker

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Herman said:
Weather update

After 2 weeks of other stuff on my head I have time to have detailed look at the weather and projections.

It's a about a week sailing to the finish. Burton is the most western skipper of the top-10 boats. This is because the Azores HP zone is in it's full glory. And light patches are there up to the Florida coast. As usual, ECMWF and GFS do no agree much after 3 days. This makes the projections less certain, but unless someone buys me a subscription, that's the best best I can do. 

The big picture is in pic #1 with ECMWF wind and pressure. Weather routing table in pic #2. Burton projected 1st, Dalin 2nd and 6 hrs later. Burton has invested in the west, had to make double more miles in that investment, but more wind is in the west. As the various LP zones will rotate in from the USA eastcoast in the comings days, he will have the new wind first. And the strongest. Routings for Burton and Dalin in pic #3 and 4. The Azores HP zone will move after a couple of days to the NE, a new LP zone will provide the other halve of the hammer and anvil which the fleet will have to navigate through. See pic#5, the yellow arrow indicates the projection for position for Burton at the 27th.

It is going to be an interesting last week, the fat lady is getting a bit restless.
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Awesome product again @Herman!

 
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