[Closed] Virtual Vendée Globe 2020

Me.

The good ship ‘Womble’

It does seem that Somewhatbehind may need to be renamed Somewhatoffcourse. He appears to be heading for Morocco.

Joneszinho here

I'm in - 'RetroEighty'

Somewhatbehind is following the Baldrick plan 🙂

Jockonabike curerntly loitering in 505925th place after forgetting about the start and heading to Portugal rather than due west.  Relying on it being a long race so hopefully I can make up some places

G

Hmmmm...

Using the padlock can seemingly make you sail in circles for an hour or so. I am currently pointing back towards the launch :-/

Back to manual I think 🙁

Overtaken by "somewhatbehind" leaves me, once again, the fat lad at the back 😀

I don't think I will give up my day job on this basis!

I have now added all the new additions. The leaders all seem to be making their way as far west as possible. Something to do with the tradewinds?

Is there an easy way to keep an eye on where everyone else is placed? I’m not getting the hang of finding you all

Using the padlock can seemingly make you sail in circles for an hour or so. I am currently pointing back towards the launch :-/

I think the padlock fixes the sail so if the wind changes direction, you go with it. I think. There’s been quite a bit of working out as we go on my ship

bigG
Free Member

Is there an easy way to keep an eye on where everyone else is placed? I’m not getting the hang of finding you all

If you dd them as everyone as friends then on the map we will have a green dot with a small head and shoulders symbol on the boat.

I think I am probably done. My 'spin' yesterday means I am officially in the last 20 boats (some obviously rudderless).

There seems absolutely no chance of catching up. The wind is non existent where I am and the rest of the fleet is mostly three days ahead and in good winds.

Probably going to check out of the game.

Sums up my real world week quite well 🙁

@bentandbroken I would keep going, there will be reversals at the front and good winds coming that means you could catch up. Long way to go.

Cloudnine racing has a boat..
Sirene3163.. not doing too bad at the minute

Bent and broken, I’m only just in front of you and I’ve been trying hard and not going in circles. Hang in, I need to have at least one person to race

B&b stick with it. I’m out to the east of you (in light winds) and I’m not going to be worrying the front of the race anytime soon.

OK, thanks for all the pep talks, I guess I need to knuckle down and ride it out for a bit, but it is difficult to see thousands of boats in front and less than 10 behind.... Bad looser? Me? 😉

B&b, hang in there, this will take a while. There's plenty of time to catch up, previous races are around 110 days. I know it's frustrating to see all the out boats in wind and you're just bobbing along.

There are loads behind you, I think jock is about 60,000 places behind (sorry jock)

Hey! After a hard day of chasing the wind I’ve reduced that gap to only 38,307 places behind. I'm almost touching his stern post....

G

@bentandbroken - is is not more like 300,000 boats behind you? I thought I saw 700,000+ starters.

Wow, on Friday I was in 163,986th place, now in 74,261th! trying to reel in Kapow and Stapalford Flyer with no success. Passing through the middle of the Cape Vede archipelago tonight, so I expect to loose some spaces as i run aground.

Good to see quite a few others joining the fun!

Im a few hours behind yetidave, Kapow and Stapleford flier but plotting a similar path, looking a few days ahead i need to change course otherwise i'll be bobbing around going nowhere!

@wors, yes i think that we need to get a little further west otherwise its all going to stop in a day or twos time...

@wors and @yetidave Oi, keep away from the West. In the best traditions of British exploration, The West is the preserve of the good boat "Flatulence would be faster".

I seem to be dropping places despite my best efforts. This is my first time racing so no idea if I'm doing it right.

I generally change heading so I find best boat speed then charge/plod off in that direction for a few hours. Then, after a few hours, I repeat. I try to head in a general direction of where it looks like wind will still b blowing when I get there whilst not heading too far away from race route. If the game tells me to, I change sails.

I haven't spent any money buying full pack or anything, not sure I really want to either.

Am I missing anything. What else can I be doing to go faster? I've lost 10,000 places since yesterday and the rest of you (apart from B&B) are heading off out of reach.

@franksinatra - No thats pretty much what we are doing. No addons either. I think the trick is not to weave around too much, better to keep heading in the right-ish direction and looking for the weather.

fransinatra, you are doing the same as me really, i want a code 0 though... Sometimes useful to look ahead windwise a few days and see directions and general quiet spots to avoid. Then maybe dont take the fastest angle, but maybe compromise to get into better wind later. Also, youve done about 1000miles so far, with another 20,000 to go. Plenty of time to make up a place or two.

Enjoying this so far - not doing great and still floating about in not much wind.

Mini StuF has also signed up, we'll see how long that lasts but she's enjoying it so far.

Edit: both of us have no idea what we're doing, trying to balance boat speed against direction.

I don't know how they calculate the positions, sometimes boats that look to be ahead (but further west) are in a similar position :shrug:

I don’t know how they calculate the positions, sometimes boats that look to be ahead (but further west) are in a similar position :shrug:

Don't forget that we're racing around a ball - basically the boats to the east are closer to the finish that those to the west. Even though they are further ahead they have to come east at some point. It's a question of when the wind direction/speed best allows that.

B&B, you may need to change tack / sails. It looks like you're becalmed in 4knots of wind.

basically the boats to the east are closer to the finish that those to the west

noticed that the leader is almost in Dakar. I doubt they are going to stay the leader for too long as i dont see an easy way out for them. Light winds or sailing straight down wind to get back to the trade winds off shore to get south. For us in the east we may be well placed currently (so long as i do'nt hit Praia tonight) as after the convergence zone it looks like upwind for a bit and we are on the right side of that..

@franksinatra

I haven’t spent any money buying full pack or anything, not sure I really want to either.

Am I missing anything. What else can I be doing to go faster? I’ve lost 10,000 places since yesterday and the rest of you (apart from B&B) are heading off out of reach.

Obviously I am not a guru 😀 but a couple of things that might help you.....

Last time I tried one of these I started as you have said and just tried to get the fastest speed heading in roughly the right direction. However, this is a bit like chess, you have to think a few moves (hours/days) ahead. It might be worth taking a slower tack/sail/direction now to get you ready for a lump of wind coming in in a few days/hours. That was one of my frustrations over the weekend, I saw the light wind trap heading my way and thought I had dodged it, but the 'padlock' did not work as I thought and I circled around and waited for the light winds to hit :-/

Second one, is that there is an Auto-sail function. This rigs the best sail for the direction you have set and the wind you subsequently sail in. In other words, when the wind changes, you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to change sails or risk damage. The autodial setting can be set in 24 hour increments. NB I don't know if you take damage in this version, but you did in the one I played about 10 years ago.

Finally, I am not paying for anything with real cash, and I plan to keep it that way. However, you do start with some experience points and you can earn them somehow. These can be traded for 'upgrades'. For me this is fair game. It might be that you can only upgrade when in port though.

PS thanks to all for the pep talks. I am glad I read them as I was judging my position by the 2D graphics on my phone. This only seems to show the bulk of the boats in contention, and then the ones nearest your boat which is why my boat looked so lost and lonely. When I read the position info in conjunction with the comments above it seems I am not doing abysmally, just badly 😀

@bigG - Thanks. I was stuck doing some stuff for my mum and was unable to makes the changes I had planned in time. Now trundling along at a more more respectable 7knots :-/

Bentandbroken now 402,991th out of 707,325 skippers 😀

Now that I am finding my way round the UX on the phone I am finding more stuff. For example only three of 'us' have done this before.

Me - About 8 years ago, but with a different login so it thinks this is my first race

One of 'you' with two events under your belt.

One of 'you' with 11 races under your belt.... and you seem to be doing very well 😉

I’m sailing Rodderz. In 202,759th.

Those in 1st now to the east have little chance of doing ok. Need to stay west towards Brazil to get the trade winds. But the doldrums are where it’s tough. I’ve got all the boat upgrades, was fed up of not getting anywhere overnight. So program boat and have auto sails on.

Added Rodderz and Jockonabike.

In other news it seems I am getting the reward for heading West and loosing ground to the STW armada. Long way to go though and I am away on a bike trip this coming weekend, there may not be much phone coverage.

One of ‘you’ with 11 races under your belt…. and you seem to be doing very well 😉

I suspect that might be me that's started 11 VR events, and only finished a very few. I did have a fun time sailing around the caribbean when I got bored on one of the races last year. As for doing well? I've picked up a few places but I'll need to head West sooner than later to catch the decent winds. That may well be my undoing.

Slipping down the rankings over night. Hopefully get some more wind tomorrow. I'm going to have to head more westerly but that's going to slow me down alot.

After MiniF getting really involved, now MrsF has taken the plunge so there will be a small amount of inter family rivalry (typically she's started in front of where I am much to her amusement).

The easterly route is not looking too clever - there's a wind and in a decent direction but not enough compared to what looks like a fairly steady 12-13 knots further west.

Does anyone know how the weather modeling works?

From what I can see it’s GFS weather.

I’m having a shocker. Dropped 40k places in 24hrs. Trying my best to head west now

Yes but they modify it so it's not the same as the actual current GFS data - so you can't download your own grib files and use routing software to find the best course.
Don't ask me how I know!!

Actually, many years ago, there used to be a desktop program that downloaded the latest grib files and you could use it to decide on the best route - it's long gone now unfortunately.

Would be useful but tbh it’s ok for me to work it out. I don’t need to do the sails etc...

Crawling along right now. Bouncing around position 200,000

I was offline most of the morning, but went to check at lunchtime and had a server timeout error.

I tried again at about 5pm and had the same

Now I am looking at a frozen screen.

That’s about 8 hours without and decent interaction at a time when I knew I needed to make some changes so I guess I will have lost another chunk of places .....

The servers have been busy today. I’ve had to close the app a couple of times and restart. You seem to be tracking me, not necessarily a good thing but at least you are not going to have a near miss with Madeira.

Had wtrl race this evening so missed a couple of hours. Lost 2000 places. But trying to head west a little more to get some wind for doldrums in 24-36 hours. Looking like a bit of an effort through Brazil to get to the good winds.

@franksinatra

The servers have been busy today. I’ve had to close the app a couple of times and restart. You seem to be tracking me, not necessarily a good thing but at least you are not going to have a near miss with Madeira.

Thumbs Up Emoji....
NB Not sure how to do that here....

Another VGer here.
49er_Jerry - just to be original..... Currently about 54,000th. Very impressed with the fleet size!

Hi Jerry..... Watch out for Stapleford Flier going the wrong way as usual 😁

Come on you lot, I know Rodderz has coughed to having all the extra sails, I suspect some others do looking at boat speeds.

who is sailing on bread and water and who has bough the good stuff?

In my experience (started a load of these, finished very few) if you're not running decent sails package you're quickly going to be distanced. Unless you join late and mid pack, even then it'll be hard not to be demoralised when you hit the southern oceans and the guys running full sails dissapear.

Happy to admit that I screwed up the start, made a poor choice when I stuck too far east and I'm now lingering mid pack but with full sails. I still won't trouble the front but I won't find the whole exercise so aggravating that I jack it in in two weeks. I think it'll quickly become tedious on the limited sails. IMHO

I just used the money we had at the start to add heavy sails, quick winch and message alerts - note alerts aren't useful if you're asleep (7hrs with the wrong sails up going very slowly)

Have done a few of these races with no add ons and decided it was time to spend some money. Not like we can go far these days so I pretend to sail fast on this!

who is sailing on bread and water and who has bough the good stuff?

Two light sails and that's it.

Just using the 'free' upgrades here

Same

Looks like we are closing up now. Good racing. Those on east of fleet towards Africa are sitting at 2.Okts. If recall they’ll lose position as we head back across south Atlantic going to need to go to west as as will be tacking into the wind.

So they've made a change to the view we get when altering the boat heading - previously if you changed the heading you were shown the new heading dotted line along with the existing dotted line which was fainter.
Now we only see the new heading dotted line, so no comparison with the existing course. Rubbish.

@sharkbait - that feature is still available on the android app - might just be they've not updated it yet

Still have the old and new course lines.

Today's been about starting to head west to set up for the trade winds and then the doldrums, I've comforted myself with the knowledge that there are 9466 other participants from the UK, only 5280 of them are ahead of me.

I’ve comforted myself with the knowledge that there are 9466 other participants from the UK, only 5280 of them are ahead of me.

How did you work that out?
I need to find comfort after dropping about 140k places in 48hrs.

Edit: just seen it, I'm 5327th out of 9466

Now making the transition from sailing down wind to up wind. So it looks like a tricky night. Wind has been a northerly. Now transition to easterly. Then ese. Fun to do.

Back from 4 days on a biking trip. Lets see how bad it went in my absence. Am I grounded in Brasil?

looks like the conveyor running south will be closed by the time it get there 🙁

Desperately slow going again. Must be another 9 hours for the wind to pick up.

Desperately slow going again. Must be another 9 hours for the wind to pick up.

You are about one week of sailing (and 450k places) ahead of me, sorry if I don't feel sorry for you!

Righto, back from a cycling trip and managed to get a few bits of internet access that stopped me bumping into Brazil. Time to roll the dice i think and see if heading South can pay off.

I just crossed the equator for the first time in a (virtual) boat. Should I have sat in a bowl of porridge and carried out a ritual to worship Neptune?

How you care to celebrate in the privacy of your own cabin is your business, but please bear in mind I'm only a few miles off your stern so keep it PG please.

G

G. You have the fancy sails so I expect you to overtake me soon. I should warn you, I am sailing this boat totally naked with a large mast.

My years in the navy were a long time ago but I remember enough to avoid naked sailors and offers to polish their mast.

May the wind always be out your back Frank

G

The good ship yeti had a mare of a weekend loosing at least 24hrs to the STW frontrunners, but strangely gained 5000 places overall from friday. Now in the deep south going vaguely in the right direction after going in circles over the last 48hrs.

Looks like a few of us are desperately trying to get ahead of the low pressure to push us out of the South Atlantic. Winds are looking uncertain around the Cape of Good Hope, let's hope I can find some breeze and start the roller coaster to Australia!

Hopefully I'll use the following low coming across to catch up a bit. Good hope is still a couple of days away

@franksinatra, you've run aground on Tristan da Cunha,,, you may need to change course unless you're sipping mai tai's on the beach?