Who's heard of the Vendee Globe? Tony Bullimore? Well it's big on both sides of the channel and a Brit has never won the Vendee Globe, always a Frenchman. But currently, 6 days in, Alex Thomson is in the lead.
www.sail-world.com/news/233128/Vendee-Globe-Day-6-Hugo-Boss-leads
It's a solo race for 60 foot monohulls. 33 entrants, mostly French, about half on foils. The race record is 74 days 3hrs 35 minutes and 46 seconds.
(They are not the fastest class of boats, that's the 100 foot trimaran class, the record for those is 42 days solo and 40 with a crew. French again)
i'd like one of their autopilots.
Just dial in the speed you're after and it will head up or bear away accordingly within a range.
One of the french sailors set it for 20 knots, and then headed off for a kip.
I hope Clarisse on BP goes well:
www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/20236/clarisse-cremer-i-m-freaking-out-a-bit
Select to expand quotecrustysailor said..
I hope Clarisse on BP goes well:
www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/20236/clarisse-cremer-i-m-freaking-out-a-bit
And Jean Le Cam. Currently running second.
To quote the race leader.
"But my god, Jean Le Cam, he is unbelievable. Unbelievable. To be where he is with that boat, at his age, it is unbelievable, brilliant."
What do they do when they get to the edge ?
Do they have to tack and come back again ?
WOW, those LT's really are a big bit of gear.
Pretty cool they come with autopilots though so you can just set it and go for a nana nap.
12 days in , 3,300 NM down 20,700 to go. You can follow it here www.imoca.org/en/races/imoca-globe-series/vendee-globe, but for those who only half follow anything not on seabreeze Alex Thomson is still in the lead, just. Here's Alex giving an insight on life on board.
18 days in, days of light wind, but they have travelled the length of Africa and are about to turn east. Frenchman Charlie Dalin is leading. Boris Herrmann from Germany is 4th. Alex Thomson, the great hope for someone to beat the French, has dropped back to 10th. After bravely taking the biggest slingshot through storm Theta, Alex discovered some serious cracks and delamination in the longitudinal beam hidden upfront behind a waterproof bulkhead. More damage than you'd see in 6 months of scouring seabreeze repair threads. (It's all detailed in half a dozen youtube videos, start here
thanks mate i am watching this with interest now.
p.s. something that stood out to me was when he was in the hole repairing in the relative calm the gentle slop under the hull was still very hard and noisy because the carbon is so stiff. i reckon they would be awful to be on for any length of time.
I read a book about one of the early races and there was a cruising couple having roasts and bottles of wine etc none of that now!
The running repairs are half the battle. Can't find video of 2nd placed Thomas Ruyant amputating the cracked port foil on Linkedout, I assume he was hanging over the gunwhale, mainsheet in one hand, electric chainsaw in the other? The foil succumbed to fatigue rather than a UFO apparently. The engineers back in France calculated he will lose 2 to 4 knots under conditions allowing for top speed. It looks like the main factor is loss of righting moment sailing on starboard.
Read all about it here www.imoca.org/en/news/news. The Southern Ocean is where it's at. "Catapaults", "Slingshots" and "Conveyor belts" ...(Are they proper meteorological/sailing terms or just something picked up in the translation from French?)
Meanwhile it looks like 2 of the 100 footer trimarans with crews of 6 have left at about 2 days ago competing for the Jules Vern trophy. You can pick the start time for this competition, timed from when you choose to cross the line. They are catching up fast, Edmond De Rothschild currently doing 32.5 knots, averaged 26 over the last 24 hrs.
( They run under various sponsers names so it's hard to follow who's who but it looks like 2 boats left pretty close together so it can be called a race.)
www.gitana-team.com/fr/tracker.aspx
A few days of drama in the Vendee Globe. Alex Thomson, after doing a magnificent job repairing Hugo Boss, irrepairably damaged a rudder and is limping to Capetown. He's lining up for his 6th attempt to win the race in 4 yrs time. And then Kevin Escoffier's boat PRB started taking on water. He deployed the liferaft ,acitvating his PRB. Jean Le Cam, the living legend of an ancient mariner, was closest, and zeroed in to make a difficult rescue.
Meanwhile Charlie Dalin is leading in Apivia south of the Cape of Good Hope. Thomas Ruyant in LinkedOut is holding second with his partially amputated port foil. Jean Le Cam was 4th in the non-foiling dagger board Yes We Cam before he and his nearby competitors were diverted to rescue Kevin Escoffier.
With Kevin safely onboard with Jean Le Cam the race has resumed. I suppose they turn a blind eye if Kevin helps out while Jean gets a bit more of a snooze that expected of a solo sailor. The course is pretty simple, go south from Vendee, turn east and pass the 3 major Capes, Good Hope, Leeuwin and the Horn then head north to Vendee. They are required to stay north of the regularly updated ice limit.
www.imoca.org/en/races/imoca-globe-series/vendee-globe (Click on the show weather tab)
Some of the fleet have sailed along the ice limit. Clarisse Cremer is well south, dressing appropriately.
they should make em just a bit stronger so they can finish. whats the point if your boat can snap in half and sink within minutes thousands of miles from help
Select to expand quotemyusernam said..
they should make em just a bit stronger so they can finish. whats the point if your boat can snap in half and sink within minutes thousands of miles from help
They have to build them light to have any chance of winning. Apart from PRB all the retirements have been due to hitting UFOs. And it's mostly the appendages that are damaged. Better the rudder, keel or snap leaving most of the boat intact. PRB apparently just folded up, but it was launched in 2009 so has survived plenty of ocean miles up until now. Carbon fibre fatigue? Samantha Davies has just hit a UFO, damaged the keel mounts and is heading to Capetown.
No collisions or breakdowns this week. The waters south of Africa are infamous for flotsam. Charlie Dalin, skippering Apivia, is still leading and approaching the half way point. The IMOCA boats apparently only hit maximum speed under ideal conditions. So far it's been rough so they pick the best speed to harmonise with the wave action.
An exciting week of racing. Plenty of lead changes, still anybody's race. 6 weeks in they are just over half way. Have just passed below Australia, coast to coast in 5 days. (Though the longitudes are bit closer together as far south as they are ). The foilers are hoping to get a break in the Pacific with its long rolling swells. The chaotic 6 metre chop that the indian Ocean is famous for levelled the playing field for the non-foilers. Yannick Bestaven is currently leading. Charlie Dalin ,who was leading for weeks, lost ground repairing a foil case and is now in second, 103 nm back. Thomas Ruyant, pushing on without his port foil, is 3rd 176nm behind. The "group of four" are still in a bunch 420nm behind. 27 of the 33 starters are still on course.
Vendee Globe is not as big as say the America's cup over here but in France it's a big deal. A larger following than the Tour De France. Girls compose songs for their favourite sailors and beam them across the planet.
Ian, if you understood the lyrics you'de be pissing yourself
That girl is a very famous stand up artist from belgium, the sailor is a big fan of hers.
His team wrote to her asking if she could write a little song to encourage him.
It's hilarious and extremely caustic !!!
Lyrics like :
I'll see you in noirmoutier for a pedalo ride, thing is, you'll probably never get this message cause you'll have sunk before.
Just give up and come back you'll never make it or you'll finish last like every year
What's with all those floating d....heads? even your injuries are ridiculous ! One pours hot tea on her pussy and the other gets bashed by a flying fish.
I'm her biggest fan !!!!
OMG Alex Thomson's a nutter, Xtreme nutter... my favourite kind.
Another week of smooth sailing. The leading pair lost ground becalmed by a high pressure system. The group of 5 about 330nm behind were able to see each other in the calm weather. In a bunch after racing for 16,000 nm? Tactics? You normally wouldn't expect a chance meeting with anyone in the Southern Ocean. In a whole year on MI, where we'd often climb to a high point and gaze out to sea, none of us saw anything. Louis Burton did drop by the lee of the island to replace a hook at the top of the mast - can't see any of the Islanders jumping up and down, waving on the beach in the background though.
Yannick Bestaven still in the lead. They've just passed point Nemo about to round Cape Horn in the next few days. Not much change in the groupings, hard to break through to surf the next weather system hemmed in by icebergs to the south and the need to clear Cape Horn. How's your French going following this race? Is Sean the only one who gets the jokes?
Day 60 and Yannick Bestaven still in the lead in the closest Vendee globe. Half the fleet have now rounded Cape Horn. 27 of the 33 starters are still in the race. 3 hit UFOs and 3 have had race-ending gear breakage. More scope for strategy heading north in the Atlantic. While circumnavigating Antarctica any deviation from skirting the iceberg limit meant a lot of extra miles.
A bit of video from the Horn. What did you do last week? Yeh, me too.
The lead's chopping and changing. Charlie Dalin has regained his earlier lead and last week's Yannick Bestaven has dropped back to 6th. The top 6 are within 100 NM of each other. However, Jean Le Cam, the ancient mariner, in 9th, will have a 15 hr time correction for his rescue of Kevin Escoffier applied at the finish line. Calculations allowing for this put him in the lead! Gitana set out once again on a the round the world speed run last Saturday. Was ahead of IDEC Sport's record pace and doing 30 something knots every time I checked the tracker. Until now. 5 knots and behind pace. Don't know what's up, all the latest is in French. IDEC had a dream run across the southern Ocean so they reckon a successful challenger needs to be 400-500 NM ahead of its schedule rounding the Cape of Good hope. Maybe next year.
Looks like Gitana was just stuck in the doldrums. You've got to allow for the global wind vectors to be the result of a computer analysis not readouts from 100,000 floating anemometers. When it looks like Gitana is doing 5 knots in 9 knots of wind... The gps doesn't lie, it was probably more like 3 knots of wind.
All good, doing 30 knots again, and 169 NM ahead of where IDEC sport was in the record breaking run. IDEC sport had its share of the doldrums. They should meet up with the Vendee fleet heading north soon.
www.gitana-team.com/en/
A close finish coming up after a long race. I get the impression there's relief amongst the competitors now that they're back in familiar waters. And warm waters! 3 backmarkers yet to round Cape Horn and it looks like they're in for more of a blow that any of them.
Frenchman Charlie Dalin first over the line and wins the Vendee Globe in 80days 6hrs 15minutes and 47 seconds. A close finish with Boris Herrmann who had 6 hrs compensation up his sleeve for assisting in the rescue of Kevin Escoffier. Boris was in with a chance of being the first non-Frenchman to win. Unfortunately Boris collided with a fishing boat in the final hours.
