A thread about the round the world solo sailing race just about to begin in France. Best of luck to all the skippers including the British contingent Alex Thomson, Sam Davies, Pip Hare and Miranda Merron.
The speeds with the foils will be crazy this time making for some exciting viewing.

It’s too going to be a wild race.

Some of the new designs are pretty out there – might we see a more extreme design survive or will a proven and more conservative design be pushed hard and survive into a top finish?

I’m looking out for all the Brits, but Pip and Sam seem proper plucky, determined and I like supporting an underdog…

I do also hope Alex might win after so many nearly’s..

Anyone entered on the vr regatta offshore game?

Interested in this, can anyone tell me how to keep up with the race and where any video content might be? TIA

My brother WhatsApp’d me this morning to say that, when the boats are in the Southern Ocean, they’ll be nearer to the ISS than any land mass – rather spun my wheels! +1 for a site to keep track. 🙂

Interested in this, can anyone tell me how to keep up with the race and where any video content might be? TIA

It is live on YouTube at the moment

Ooh! I have just created a Virtual Regatta Offshore (Free) account so I can play along ;

Username Bentandbroken.

Anyone else joining in and fancy setting up a ‘group’ race (for those of us who used to be on the Boards Windsurfing forum this might bring back memories!)

We’ve been machining CNC parts throughout 2020 for ATR (Alex Thomson Racing) – will be following this closely.

Ooo, thanks, good thread. I’ll hopefully catch a few bits. What sort of speeds so these yachts above m achieve these days? 45 knots ish?

And we are away. Charal sneaking into the lead, I guess no suprise.

The tracking link for the race:

https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/tracking-map

I did the virtual race last time. This time I’ll just chat here

Looks like someone’s turned around already. Will they go back out or is that it race over for 4 years?

There’s been a few over the years who nip back, fix something and head back out.

Fabrice’ sails were jammed up the mast.

https://mobile.twitter.com/VendeeGlobeENG/status/1325700247922864130

Signed up for the virtual Vendee. Username “flatulence would be faster” only on a guest account as I am tight.

The foils look mad. Southern ocean in the dark on foils looks utterly bonkers

Will they be able to foil all the time? I’m not really up on foil sailing

The foils work above a certain windspeed I think – around 10knts breeze (I think).
I’m not sure they have an upper limit, other than full on ‘sails down and retract everything’. Some impressive film of them in huge wind and seas.

I don’t know how the sailors put up with the noise and motion for so long.

It’s not quite the same sort of foiling as in the AC but the hulls do get lifted out of the water as the boat speed increases. AFAIK the foils can’t be trimmed either so the hull will fly then probably drop back then lift again, etc.
Watching the start yesterday they seemed to be doing in the region of 13-15 knots which wasn’t quite enough to get the foils working properly so it looks like a hull speed of about 18-20 knots seems to be the target at which point the foils work fully and the speed then rises rapidly.
All this will be dependant on foil design – I assume some are designed to lift earlier than others but will have a lower “top speed”.

how do the foils respond in rough water?

No idea – probably not brilliant (hence the alternation between flying/not flying) which may partly be why there are still a number of older non-foiling boats racing (other reasons being cost and reliability).

AFAIK the foils can’t be trimmed either so the hull will fly then probably drop back then lift again, etc.

The new ones can be, but just not as quickly as an AC boat – a few seconds to respond and not automated, rather than a few tenths and 100% hands on that the AC boats have.

It does seem that the boats can crash off waves rather violently – I am sure I watched a video with AlexT speaking about injuring himself as the boat was going from 25-30knts to near standstill, without warning at times.

The new ones can be

Ahhh right, fair enough – thought it might be limited by the class rules. But given that a new (latest tech) hull is multiple £M then I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re trimmable to an extent.

I had heard that they’re now a pretty violent and noisy place to be with unscheduled disassembly a constant threat.

AlexT has posted a short video saying he hit some fishing gear which caused a short delay. In the video he looks like he’s playing some fancy PlayStation game all tooled up with headset and arm mounted tablet linked to his cameras. The electronic tech has come on massively, I just hope it doesn’t become a liability in the Southern Ocean.

@sgn23 I am new to this Social Media stuff, but want to track some of this stuff. Where did he post that? Twitter? Insta? (i.e. what account should I create first 😉 )

@bentandbroken there’s an Alex Thomson Racing YouTube channel and it gets pushed out to Facebook and probably other social channels.
There’s also The Hub at https://www.alexthomsonracing.com/the-hub where you can get all sorts of stats including his heart rate if that interests you!
Plus lots on the official Vendee Globe website too.

@sgn23 Thanks. I think I can dig round in the evenings, but want to try and get a ‘feed’ during the day. I had a look at the website and watched the video you mentioned. It looks great and I would love to follow it further/more 🙂

but want to try and get a ‘feed’ during the day.

It’s a long race to get daily feeds!

But if you go to the Vendée website on your phone it will ask if you want updates.

In other news I’m going to hit Southern Spain later tonight unless I pay attention
😱

{Stapleford Flier currently lying about 17,000th – that won’t last long 😫}

Alex Ts boat is nuts. It must be the sailing equivalent of riding Megavalanche on a Pinarello road bike over and over again for weeks at a time. It looks fast but brutally unforgiving.

Stapleford Flier and BentandBroken – just added you on VR. I’m in KAPOW.

Cheers,
Nick

If you start a group i would like to play along. Currently 189,000th.

A question for those who are playing the virtual version. Is this a level playing field? Are we signing up for Pro sails and such?

having never done a virtual regatta, i have now signed up. Yetidave

@uphillcursing I am going to be playing for free unless there is a paywall at some stage. If that happens I will probably stop.

That said, you seem to get some kind of experience points that can be used to ‘buy’ things and I have already spent and earned some of them.

Stapleford Flier and KAPOW are now being followed

@uphillcursing – Assuming I have typed it correctly, I cant find your boat :-/

So what powers the foils up and down on the VG boats? I think they’re battery powered on AC boats, but this isn’t going to work (or is it?) on VG.

Sailing along in the good ship “flatulence would be faster” and following all the STW boats

Looks like Stapleford Flier got off to a flyer indeed. Got some work to do if I am to catch up.

what is the red block on the live map, is it an exclusion zone to make race more exciting?

Red bit = Traffic Separation Scheme, to keep shipping heading in opposite directions apart at pinch points around the globe. Big penalty if you’re a Vendee skipper and you go into the red bit. ‘Sea is lava’ type thing.

Read somewhere that AT hit some fishing gear, fingers crossed for a turn of speed in Boss downwind when he gets to send it.

thanks, I though it was something like that!!!