Virtual Vendée Globe 2020

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?