VOR '17-'18 - THE GAME

[MetalMan]

If there is room on the list, I'm in again this edition.  Boat is MetalMan.  Using just heavy sails and code 0 - all I could afford (for 'free').  I notice some loss of speed against boats in similar wind and angles - how much does foils and polish add in these conditions? I'm guessing at least 1 kt.

 

[Marty6]

- 7 and 1/2 days into the current Clipper leg I have 29 weather, 12 stealth and 12 help cards.  

- 6 and 1/2 days into the 2nd leg of the mini I have 22 weather, 18 auto sail and 13 stealth cards. 

...

WetHog   h34r:

I guess you still haven't found the Turbo card which gives you 2x boat speed for 12 hours Glad i have one in the VOR leg, desperately needed

 

[stufishing]

La Semillante TPN just snuck past me when I was distracted finishing work and getting home. I was still running 140 angle and he went to 130. I'm on 130 now to match him but he has passsed me I think. Pity, but plenty of time to go. Actually, anyone else having problems with the game "forgetting the last thing you do"? I've started thinking that  for the last 6 hours everything results from the second last thing I've set.

 

[Milli]

If there is still room on the list, please include my boat Blitzquart.

The leaders seem to replicate Zezo's recommendations with only a few micro-adjustments. Using zeso is as if you have an infinite number of programmation cards and a 16-day course forecast (instead of 24 hours). What remains are the changes in the weather forecast and the attempt to guess them correctly. 
Doesn't that kill the game's spirit? At least as a sailing game?

 

[WetHog]

I screwed up just so on my bedtime course setting and I lost a bit to my friends in the West.  Figures.  Oh well.  

Having said that, it’s looking real good right now to being in the West.  

WetHog   h34r:

 

[Your Mom]

]The leaders seem to replicate Zezo's recommendations with only a few micro-adjustments. Using zeso is as if you have an infinite number of programmation cards and a 16-day course forecast (instead of 24 hours). What remains are the changes in the weather forecast and the attempt to guess them correctly. 

Doesn't that kill the game's spirit? At least as a sailing game?

Replicating Zezo's micro-adjustments actually isn't beneficial.  I view those as jagged lines to be smoothed manually.  Usually best to sail optimal TWA angles, max speed angles, or straight lines, not every little tweak Zezo recommends.

Regarding the game's spirit...  in the last VOR, I proudly refused to use Zezo or any other tool and really enjoyed that.  But you simply can't compete with the top few hundred boats without using a routing tool, unless your manual decisions result in you getting lucky with a big change in the forecast (ie, inadvertently taking a successful flyer relative to the people following routing tools).  The trouble is, as Black Boat said, in absence of a free tool like Zezo, a handful of people with their own private custom routing tools would routinely crush everyone else.  It would be hopelessly non-competitive.

Eventually, I got good enough at the game to want to be able to compete at the front, so I started using Zezo.  The good news is that I'm proof that you don't need a custom private tool.  You can be fully competitive using only Zezo.  I applaud anyone who chooses to do it without a routing tool, but that comes with accepting that you're racing for a mid-fleet finish most of the time at best. (Mid-fleet relative to the people who are trying hard... not mid-fleet relative to total boats on the water)

FWIW...  Using a tool like Zezo doesn't mean there's no navigation skill involved.  A critical question is where you ask Zezo to route you to...  the best answer in long races often isn't the finish line.  Additionally, you need to look ahead several days and see what you trust in the forecast and what you don't.  If it's routing you around a giant hole 5 days in the future, there's a good chance that hole won't be where the current forecast things it will be...  so you have to ponder that and adjust accordingly, etc.  Those who blindly follow Zezo around the course can finish ok, but usually not in the to 50.

One of many unfortunate side-effects of the new card game, in my opinion, is that it really hurts people who don't use routers.  I really enjoyed plotting out several scheduled maneuvers, trying to tweak the timing and angle for each to optimize a route manually, etc...  and then killing the whole thing to try something different.  Now you can't do that without burning through a lot of cards that are difficult to obtain.  So you have to approximate the plan in your head instead, which I think is a big disadvantage against people using routers.  Anyway...  Truth is that even when I'm front-running, I'm not using many cards.  I have an advantage because I'm able to get online many times per day to manually do course changes.  I'll occasionally schedule a couple maneuvers during the night, sometimes including an auto-sails card, but that's it.  Never long chains of maneuvers.  And I usually sleep 6-7 hours at night.  I decided as soon as VRO3 came out that if it got to a point where I had to wake up during the night and/or drop significant money buying cards, I'd quit rather than do that to compete or race non-competitively.

 

[gary]

Can you add hschutz to the list

 

[WetHog]

As a non-sailor I need Zezo.  Without it I'd be hanging with Me Rongo, prospecting.  Having said that, I like looking for fliers and chances to take with Zezo.  This leg as sort of an example but last edition I took fliers on most legs and it payed off really big for me from the China leg to Auckland (went north almost to Wake Island and came down through the Marshals and finished in the 300's), Capetown to wherever the stopover was in the Persian Gulf (went way east out to the Crozet Islands then turned north and finished in the top 1000 for the 1st time) and Leg 1 to Capetown when I finally figured things out half way through the leg and then saw an opportunity going way south leaving the SA coast and made up 1000's of positions.  Persian Gulf to China through the Malacca Straight not so much, forecast change really screwed me.  Anyway, Zezo is the reason the VORG is fun for me.

WetHog   h34r:

 

[unplugged34]

ATM In 3D mode I can only see Your Mom, 20nm west of me.  mkgsailor looks to be the same to my east but doesn't show up, though I show on their view.

Also still don't grasp the Day Night thing.  I'm East Coast, so it is 10AM, should be 13:00/14:00 where the boat is but the graphic shows night.

 

[WetHog]

ATM In 3D mode I can only see Your Mom, 20nm west of me.  mkgsailor looks to be the same to my east but doesn't show up, though I show on their view.

Also still don't grasp the Day Night thing.  I'm East Coast, so it is 10AM, should be 13:00/14:00 where the boat is but the graphic shows night.

Add me to your friends list.  I am about 5 miles west of Mom.  

I am on the east coast as well.  I don't get the day/night thing either.

WetHog   h34r:

 

[HKG1203]

An example with zezo is that it was routing me down the african coast for 4 hours while i continued west (set to fernando) . Another thing to bear in mind is that the real boats also use weather routing so i'd say it makes it more realistic. 

I've been using PredictWind to do some of the routing and see what ECMWF models are saying. Quite large splits although not entirely relevant due to the 4 knot minimum

 

[Milli]

which forecast model does VR use? (I apologise for the question, played the vendée globe but nothing between)

 

[WetHog]

An example with zezo is that it was routing me down the african coast for 4 hours while i continued west (set to fernando) . Another thing to bear in mind is that the real boats also use weather routing so i'd say it makes it more realistic. 

Same here although initially I still thought Fernando was a weigh point but I still wanted to be west.  Without using Fernando as my destination Zezo had me going down the African coast for most of the 1st day.  So you can't just blindly follow Zezo.  

WetHog   h34r:

 

[HKG1203]

which forecast model does VR use? (I apologise for the question, played the vendée globe but nothing between)

GFS i believe

 

[Your Mom]

When the destination is too far away for the router to get you there before the end of its time horizon (at least with Zezo), it routes you to the closest point you can reach within that time horizon.  So...  even with the horizon set to 16 days...  Zezo was routing to a spot on the African coast line...  because that was the closest you could get to Cape Town in 16 days.

Hence the need when sailing to a destination beyond the router's time horizon to pick an intermediate destination to route to.  I chose a spot in the middle of the south atlantic.  A lot of people choose Fernando de Noronha (and Zezo offers a convenient selector for that destination).  Some people pick a spot that they think is a good doldrums crossing place, and then route to Cape Town once they get there.  etc.  But...  people who blindly follow Zezo's routing to Cape Town always wind up trying to go down the African coast, always look great in the rankings for a day or two, and almost always wind up finishing days behind the winners who go West.  Bottom line is that these boats like being off the wind, and the West route allows you to spend most of your time under gennaker and most of the rest of your time (in the doldrums) under C0.  Once you hoist an upwind sail, you know someone out there is crushing you.

 

[mkgsailor]

If there is still room on the list, please include my boat Blitzquart.

The leaders seem to replicate Zezo's recommendations with only a few micro-adjustments. Using zeso is as if you have an infinite number of programmation cards and a 16-day course forecast (instead of 24 hours). What remains are the changes in the weather forecast and the attempt to guess them correctly. 
Doesn't that kill the game's spirit? At least as a sailing game?

Added.

 

[mkgsailor]

Can you add hschutz to the list

added.

 

[Sailing My Cubicle]

I've headed West using Fernando as an initial way point but am still deciding how far west to go.  For now, I'm headed south.

 

[Icedtea]

I'm working away at an event at the moment, so can only check on my boat once every 8 hours or so. I've been going south so far, but am going to start working west as of tonight- will be following the leaders down the middle I imagine.

 

[Tunnel Rat]

Hello.  This morning's rankings at 00:00UTC.

Ozzy and Rule69 are having their own game playing the coastal winds, however the difference is down below 300 miles for many of us.  Next question, where exactly to cross the Pot?


Place


SA Name


Boat Name


Dist to Leader


1


Ozzy


Ozzy85


4041.92


2


Iced Tea


rule69


16.3


3


Driftwood


Me Rongo Rekohu SA


240.9


4


Hike, Bitches


HikeBitches


247.3


5


I Sail The Black Boat


Thistle1678


250.8


6


prettyhatemachine


prettyhatemachine


252.4


7


briar


Wing it


277.4


8


From The Rail


A-Squared


277.5


9


Magool


Magool


286.8


10


Gybe Turkey


Gybe Turkey


291.1


11


Your Mom


Your Mom SA


293.1


12


Tunnel Rat


Mongrel


295.3


13


Vibroman


Vibroman_SA


295.5


14


ThijsK


ThijsK


298.2


15


Kapt'n Kirk


prowler_1-SA


302.1


16


stufishing


Stufishing_SA


302.1


17


Breitling


Breitling_SA


305.9


18


Golden Rose


Golden Rose SA


317


19


Marty6


Cambodunum


319.6


20


Wet Hog


WetHog-SA


327.7


21


Mud Sailor


Mudsailor SA


332.3


22


daan62


hutspot77


335.3


23


x2sea


m2for-SA


340.8


24


Sailing My Cubicle


SailingMyCubicle


364.8


25


The Actual Dave


Davemw


376.2


26


Hydrogene


Eau Gazeuse


450.3



Edit, please excuse formatting - on the home computer and it is doing funny things that I don't have time to sort out - going for a 12 hr hike with the missus, so I have got my excuse in early ...........