Vendee Globe 2020
- Thread starter bigrpowr
- Start date
loneshark64
Super Anarchist
In below vid you can see the tiller on starboard, and the transversal piece moving linking starboard and port attachment points for the tiller :
Corryvreckan
Member
I think the boats are sailing into lighter air between the first low and Theta. Makes sense that the leaders slow down first.
Your Mom
Super Anarchist
My bad. You are correct. I've been looking at long-term forecasts for the South Atlantic, and have sometimes seen what I described, but didn't make the mental connection that what I was looking at was the St. Helena High in an odd position rather than a low. A couple days ago, the long-term forecast was showing the St. Helena High quite far South, producing a scenario like I described. But now it looks more normal. Of course, as others have said, the forecast is unreliable 2 weeks out, so routing that far South now is unreliable. It's moot for now anyway... The plan for the next several days will be all about Theta and then a good path through the Doldrums. By the time they get that far, the forecast for the far South will start to be more useful.
Anyway... I guess a corrected version of my point was... If the St. Helena High is well established and unusually South when they get there, a more Easterly routing could make sense. I agree that in any other case, it'll be wrong. (And when I say more Easterly, I mean more toward the middle than usual... I can't see it ever making sense to sail close to Africa.)
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stief
Super Anarchist
True that. Also mentioned by Juan K in today's Live, like so many commentators on the edition of the VG have been saying for months.
It just doesn't - imocas are dramatically slower upwind than downwind or reaching and when it takes 30-60 minutes to complete a tack; there's no just reason to break the boat, go upwind along the African coast when the prevailing winds are all against you and you can instead just reach down as far south as Salvador and hook to port onto a system that's constantly moving west to east and essentially make up the extra distance sailed in one day.
Schakel
Dayboat sailor
I do not believe the sleep monitoring of Alex is correct.
He is dozing of , nappin as he calls it, but the monitor doesn't register that.
His position in the fleet is leading but according to monitoring, he's on the edge of a nervous breakdown?
Back to sleepreseach is my suggestion.
Your Mom
Super Anarchist
I'll drop it. I'm not talking about sailing to Africa. I'm just talking about a long-term forecast I was seeing a couple days ago, which no longer exists, which showed a very large anticyclone in the South Atlantic, where all of the winds between the ice limit and about 30S were from the East, and you were going to have to be below the ice limit to get winds from the West. Very unusual, so it caught my attention as "wow, that's not what these boats were built for". It made me wonder what the best routing would look like in a case like that. I wasn't trying to suggest beating down the African coast... Just saying that they might be stuck in some upwind stuff regardless, if that were to occur.
But that's highly atypical, and now it's gone from the forecast, so having brought it up, I look like an idiot.
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I’m not calling you an idiot - I’m just saying I struggle with the assumptions.
I think looking so far ahead, esp with boats of unknown potential (none of us have their polars or what the skippers are capable of) - it just makes sense to assume the conventional.
We take the Monday forecast, rewind it a week or two, forward it a week. You see the clear patterns. There’s an established highway to get to the southern ocean and no one wants to deal with the high pressure ridge that forms every few days off Africa that cruisers use to get away from Cape Town.
I think looking so far ahead, esp with boats of unknown potential (none of us have their polars or what the skippers are capable of) - it just makes sense to assume the conventional.
We take the Monday forecast, rewind it a week or two, forward it a week. You see the clear patterns. There’s an established highway to get to the southern ocean and no one wants to deal with the high pressure ridge that forms every few days off Africa that cruisers use to get away from Cape Town.
Schakel
Dayboat sailor
That howling sound for me is a sign to get to the harbour, those guys have to live with it.
At 0:49 he calls it stressfull noises and sounds.
Great, it's extreme sport...
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take sailor´s performance into account..
Alex hadn't much sleep so he has to sleep in order to be awake during the Theta storm Friday.
terrafirma
Super Anarchist
I think thats more the issue he needs some sleep and can't trim the boat during that period when the others can. He may surrender the lead but don't think that will bother him he will know be confident with the boat.
staysail
Super Anarchist
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My point is that if it costs him excessive mental and physical effort to sail that boat to greater speeds than his competitors, even if the boat is inherently faster, he may exhaust himself, mental and/or physical deterioration, before he gets to the finish. Isn't that basically what happened in the TJV with the same boat (faster than all the others) and a shorter race?
If he takes enough rest to stay fit and able, can he keep ahead?
Buck Turgidson
Member
- 179
- 80
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he lost his keel in TJV and was 2 up in that race!
I really don't get what you are trying to say. I think you just overestimated the performance of the boat.
