Vendee Globe Starts Today, Facts, Video, Discussion

[Franziska]

@iSaint

There is an American:

http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/skippers/69/rich-wilson

Franziska

www.ladyrover.com

[Polux]

Originally Posted by iSaint

I'm sure this has been asked before, but why no Americans in the race?

There is, in this one on this one and also on past ones.
Look at this post about the American racing. Quite a sailor:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post2252714

The best American results were two 9th places, one on the 2004-2005 edition by Bruce Schwab and another by the same sailor that is racing this year, Rich Wilson, on the 2008-2009 edition.

The French sailors dominate solo racing and if one wants to be a top solo sailor it has to move to France to learn with them on the many smaller solo races that they have, including transats. That's what most Europeans that want to have a carrier on solo racing do.

Meanwhile one of the top figures on this race among the semi-amateurs, the Japonese Shiraishi was forced to retire after losing the mast. A pity since he was making a great race and it is a very nice guy. He deserved better luck
"At 0330 UTC, I heard the mast break from inside of the boat. I quickly went outside to check the damage but the mast had broken in half above the second spreader. I was able to remove the broken piece and I will need to go up again to do some cleaning. The wind was 20 knots at the time I dismasted. I'm okay. I don't need any assistance, and I am heading for Cape Town. I am sorry for everyone who supported me in this journey and would like to particularly thank my sponsors for their kind support."

[Polux]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

JPD has not updated his ice zone data and had to sail back to exit the zone.

HA HA HA !!!!

Stories like this make the whole difference.

Finally some real weather is about to arrive. Fingers crossed for few failures and some fast sailing for all of them!
b.

That's really bad luck...and 8 hours lost. Armel and Alex have to pay a lot of attention regarding that: both had already been very near the limit

Yes, some are playing with the fire, trying to stay close but ahead big depressions to go faster. That is the case with Josse that is now on a good position to go very fast on the next days and won more miles to the leaders. He is already going faster than them.
https://gis.ee/vg/?boat=3

[Polux]

Paul Meilhat was one of the two that was caught last night by a depression. Hes said about it (translated from French):


"On the last few hours it just calmed down, the wind shifted to the west and I think there will be more rough sea again. It blows still 35 knots. The last 24 hours, it was a bit of a war on board, it was impossible to move because the boat made sudden movements, but it remained very stable.

Me and Jeremie fought to stay ahead of the depression. Once she caught us, the challenge was to find the sail for those conditions and especially to reef iat the right time, because we do not go on deck when the boat went to 25-30 knots surfing.

You really have to anticipate. I had two reefs in the mainsail and J2 at the beginning, and I went for j3 during the last 24 hours. It was nice to have Jeremie and his boat next to me, it was stimulant.

I'll try to fight to stay on a good weather systems and keep the same pace. "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xc7Ly_-6BA

And the NZ racer, Colman with a small problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-TPY1pwOH0

[Polux]

I had said yesterday that Sebastian Josse was plying with fire...and he got burned. Bad luck for him that was risking a lot to catch the ones ahead.

He has putting himself just ahead of a big depression trying to keep the boat on the zone of strong winds but not too strong riding the depression and staying ahead of it...only the boat didn't stand the very muscular conditions and falling from a wave he seriously damaged a foil.

And is misery did not finish here since with a damaged boat he was caught by the storm and his now sailing on survival conditions, having stopped racing. From the description of the damage I am afraid that he will have to gave up since that kind of problem can damage the hull at the insertion point.

I am really sad about him and I really hope all turns well and he can sort a way of bringing the foil in, but that would be difficult on a storm. Here the story:

"Since yesterday, Sébastien Josse has had to face some very rough conditions ahead of a tropical low coming down from Madagascar. This morning, while sailing on the starboard tack in a westerly air stream blowing at between 30 and 35 knots and on heavy seas with waves in excess of 4m, the 60-foot monohull, Edmond de Rothschild got swept along on a wave and then ploughed into the bottom.

The boat came to a sudden standstill and in the incident the port foil suddenly went right down. It slammed into the top of the housing, which damaged the upper part of the appendage and its trimming system. Sébastien Josse was inside when the incident occurred and was not injured.

In order to make safe the foil, which threatened to come out of its housing, which could have had serious consequences for the structural integrity of the hull in this part of the boat, Sébastien Josse gybed to change tack and continue on his starboard foil while trying to carry out temporary repairs.

Gitana 16 was on a N-NE’ly heading towards Australia, but for safety reasons was unable to continue on this course for very long. Conditions are worsening to the north of this system that the sailor has been trying to avoid for the past 24 hours by making headway towards the east as quickly as possible along the Antarctic Exclusion Zone. According to the latest forecasts, in the north the sailor would likely be facing 50-knot winds and very heavy seas with 10 m high waves. Since 1300 UTC the 60-foot monohull Edmond de Rothschild has therefore returned to a SE’ly heading."
News - Damage aboard Edmond de Rothschild: Sébastien Josse temporarily puts his race on hold - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

Scary and sad

Very said also for Romain Attanasio that broke both rudders!!!! hitting something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiWG5D-i_CM

He tells the story almost crying but I believe he will not give up. He is going for the coast to find some shelter. He was a spare rudder and I bet he will manage to make of the two broken rudders something like a rudder. Romain is a great sailor, one of the pros on very old boats and his dream is to finish this race, that he is making for the first time. I don't believe he is going to give up easily.

[Polux]

Damn, just look at what many boats are going through in what regards storms:

https://gis.ee/vg/

Sebastien Josse, the one with the broken foil said he had suspending the race because he is going to cross the forbidden ice line for escaping from the storm. Now it is the time for armel and Alex to sail in some very nasty weather too.

[Polux]

Drama on the Vendee globe. Look here:
https://gis.ee/vg/?boat=14
Yes that is one of the boats that I said on last post it would get really bad weather and it had the bad luck to hit something very badly with the keel in a way the the risk of losing the keel, that is just hanging there is very serious an on top of that the boat is making a lot of water.

He is still on the middle of a gale and he will not be able to bring the boat back safely to land, that would be South Africa. He is far away and on a desperate situation even if the boat is theoretically unsinkable and with all sails down the capsize risk is not big, even if he loses the keel. The organization called for a rescue.

I really wish Kito de Pavant all the luck and I wish he can hang on till Louis Burton, the sailor that is nearer, can bring his boat to the rescue. He is however at a considerable distance.

"Contacted by telephone, Kito de Pavant declared, “I hit something hard with the keel. It was a violent shock and the boat came to a standstill. The rear bearings of the keel were ripped off and the keel is hanging under the boat kept in place simply by the keel ram, which is in the process of cutting through the hull... The keel housing has been destroyed and there is a huge ingress of water there, but for the moment, it is limited to the engine compartment. I currently have forty knots of wind and 5-6m high waves. The boat is stopped. I brought down the mainsail so that she is heeling less. The situation has been stabilised for the moment. I have my survival kit alongside me. Someone is going to have to come and get me. I am trying to contact the Marion Dufresne to ask them to come here.”"

[Steadman Uhlich]

POLUX,
Thank you very much for continuing to post in this thread with such good content!

I appreciate that you are posting not only videos, but also some analysis and even translations of some French text to English. That really helps!

I also enjoyed seeing the WINDYTV graphic showing the winds and positions of the boats.
________

I noticed in reading your text posts above that several of the boats have had damage due to hitting something. I think it would be interesting to keep a count of how many suffer damage due to hitting some obstruction. Please do.

Whether they are striking whales or submerged containers, it is interesting and noteworthy that so many from such a small set of boats have struck something and the damage can be severe (e.g. The smashed keel mentioned above.).

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Steady Hand

POLUX,
Thank you very much for continuing to post in this thread with such good content!

I appreciate that you are posting not only videos, but also some analysis and even translations of some French text to English. That really helps!

I also enjoyed seeing the WINDYTV graphic showing the winds and positions of the boats.
________

I noticed in reading your text posts above that several of the boats have had damage due to hitting something. I think it would be interesting to keep a count of how many suffer damage due to hitting some obstruction. Please do.

Whether they are striking whales or submerged containers, it is interesting and noteworthy that so many from such a small set of boats have struck something and the damage can be severe (e.g. The smashed keel mentioned above.).

It would really be more easy to count the ones that don't hit anything

Hitting something means not necessarily a damage. Most of the rudders pop up when they hit something so it is really needed a huge shock at high speed to damage a rudder. The keels also take shocks without damage and much more do so than the ones that have problem due to a huge one.

Regarding the keel accident with Kito, with the kind of destruction it provoked it can only have happened at speed with a very massive object or animal. Anyway it had happened before and on the last vendee I believe to two boats, but not in such a bad manner. They lost the keels but where able to bring the boats home, one of them keep racing and finished among the first.

There was another one that lost the keel but not at the direct result of a shock (if I remember correctly) but that keel could have been already weakened by previous smaller shocks.

In fact I believe most contacts have to do with marine life. They are not used to relatively silent boats that come at high speed. On a motorboat the engines give plenty of warning before the vessel is near. Most of those contacts happen at a considerable speed (two digit speeds).

[Steadman Uhlich]

POLUX,
Thanks for your answer regarding my question about boats striking objects (or whales).

Your point about the relatively fast and silent IMOCA boats hitting some sea life are good. I can imagine a whale would not anticipate such a fast and big strike even if they somehow detected the boat by some noise on the surface as it sailed towards them. BAM! Hit before it could respond. And, whales do sleep too, usually hanging near the surface. And, the Southern Ocean is "whale territory."

[Polux]

Some interesting views, by the race director and veteran racer of circumnavigation races (Withbread), JACQUES CARAËS, regarding the way several sailors are taking considerable risks at a very early stage, that can only contribute to a bigger breakage. If the ones on the front go unreasonably fast, all the others that want to win have to push their boats too.

Time to take care:

“The situation is very rough for two boats in particular. Firstly for Edmond de Rothschild, which was near a very deep low with very heavy seas on the edge of the Antarctic Exclusion Zone. A situation that is far from simple for Sébastien (Josse, 3rd). He has been sailing along the edge, but is still 5-6m high waves. (Since this interview, we have learnt that it is closer to 8m and 40-knot winds for Sébastien Josse – editor). Further north, Paul Meilhat, SMA, is also in a very active system and heavy seas. It was quite risky so we were keeping a close eye on these two during the night.”
(this was an interview before Josse broke the boat)

"What about the two frontrunners, Armel Le Cléac’h and Alex Thomson?
“The two leaders are still going at speed. Thye have picked up the front coming towards them and have accelerated again with speeds above 20 knots or even 23 at times. They are getting away from those behind once again. It’s an incredibly intense duel between Alex and Armel. 84 miles separate them this morning, so it’s still very close. Neither of them are easing off and they are both maintaining high speeds. A front is propelling them towards the Pacific. Their performance is impressive.”..

For a week most of them have been in the Southern Ocean. It’s here they are facing much tougher conditions with the boats being battered and pressure on the sailors. They need to be cautious here in this strip until they get out at Cape Horn.”

What about the weather?
“We are really into classic patterns for the Southern Ocean. The racers are having to deal with low-pressure systems and go from one system to another. This means a lot of work and heavier seas, leading to potential broaching. So now is the time to be cautious.”"

Very prophetic his words. Some hours after Josse broke his boat.

Very hot headed this edition, I mean, they should give it all but after bringing their boats out of the nasty seas and winds of the high latitudes of the Southern Indian, or at least at the last stage of it, not at the beginning.

If the front runners don't break all their boats, this would be a record setting Vendee Globe and by a big margin.

[Polux]

About the Sebasrien josse rescue, the nearest ship is Marion Dufresne
an oceanographic and research French Ship that was called for the rescue when it was 110nm away (big luck). For doing those 110nm on those conditions they will take about 10 hours being able to make an average speed of only 11K!!!!

As I said, big luck to Kito in having a ship so close. The vendee globe racer nearer to him is at over 600nm and even if it is a bit faster would take almost the double of the time to arrive there.

[Polux]

One good new and several bad ones

Good news:

Kito de Pavant was safely rescued from his boat by the crew of Marion Dufresne, the Frensh ship that by miracle was near by:

Captain Dudouit (Marion Dufresne II): “... We reached the area at around 1530 UTC, as night was falling.

We were in visual and VHF radio contact with Kito de Pavant, but as it was growing dark and the weather was still rough, it was not possible to act immediately, and in any case, the skipper was in control of the situation on his boat. We jointly agreed to wait until daybreak to launch our rigid inflatable boat to take him off. He described the situation to us: he had controlled the ingress of water and we agreed that if his boat capsized after losing her keel, we would recover him from his life raft. .... This morning the situation started to worsen, as the water level had risen. Kito de Pavant was therefore directly picked up by our rigid inflatable and taken aboard the Marion Dufresne II. "

Kito de Pavant (Bastide-Otio): “I was lucky with my bad luck. The Marion Dufresne was in the area and that only happens four times a year… The conditions were nasty and late in the night, I was no longer able to get rid of the water. The boards were floating. It was hard leaving my boat and abandoning her in the middle of nowhere, and it’s really upsetting losing my boat. But that was the only solution, as I no longer had much energy left for the pumps and I was unable to recharge the batteries, as the engine was under water… A large section of the hull has been damaged, as the bottom of the hull went with the aft keel mountings. The keel ram ripped through more than a meter of the hull. It was sickening to see the boat in that condition. It was getting too dangerous for me…

The Marion Dufresne was fortunately 110 miles north of me. The other possibility was Louis Burton, who was two days away from my position. He would only have got to me tomorrow morning. It’s horrible leaving the boat like that and I have lost a lot and there are some very serious consequences. It’s the first time I have lost a boat. In terms of how I feel, it has hit me hard, but physically I’m fine.”
News - Kito de Pavant aboard the Marion Dufresne - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

Some days ago Colman had fire aboard:

It seems he had managed not only to control the situation but to reduce the damage.

Bad news:

Sebastien Josse, the 3rd, the one that had one foil damaged, due to an accident when surfing a wave at 30k, announced that he was abandoning the race. I am not surprised since by the description of the damage it seemed a lot worse than simply haven broken the foil. On this case it seems that it was not the foil that broke but the linkage. This could lead, if the boat continues to be raced, to further breakage and to serious ingress of water.

“.. The wind was blowing at 35 knots and the seas whipped up to around 4m. While surfing along, the boat reached thirty knots before slowing right down to ten knots as she dug in. It only lasted for a few seconds. ... When the boat got going again, I felt that something wasn’t right and I soon saw that there was a problem with the port foil. It was in the water, although I had been sailing with the foils up. .. The attachment to the top of the foil, which is a part made of carbon and designed for such strains, had broken. I had to act quickly, as the foil was just being held in place by two screws and if it came out of its mounting, the consequences would be much more serious. It could damage the whole housing by slipping sideways, which would lead to an ingress of water. "
News - Sébastien Josse and the Mono60 Edmond de Rothschild announce their retirement - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

Josse and the team could not find any way to solve the problem in a satisfactory and safe way that did not compromise the boat safety if he continues to race, so he is retiring.

One of my favorite sailors, a younger one on a less competitive boat, Thomas Ruyant, has having problems after problems, first he broke a lot of battens and had to bring the big mainsail down for taking them and repairing them now, another unusual problem that lead to a big ingress of water:

"While operating his port ballast tank system, the end of the snorkel tube, which allows him to fill the tank when the boat is at speed, broke off without causing any further damage to the hull. Thomas immediately saw that a lot of water was coming inside the boat. He quickly blocked the leak with bags and anything else he could find within reach. He immediately gybed to move to the port tack to keep the hole out of the water. Thomas has already managed to dry out part of the boat and is dealing with the situation.
...
Le Souffle du Nord pour Le Projet Imagine is currently experiencing 30-40 knot winds and heavy seas (3-4 m high waves). "
News - Thomas Ruyant suffers damage - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

And another one (Eric Bellion) that damaged a rudder but this time not for hitting something but on a violent knock down with 50k winds (scary!!!)

"Éric Bellion informed his shore team at 1720 UTC that his starboard rudder had been seriously damaged. He had been sailing in heavy seas with winds averaging thirty knots. The boat was knocked down in a gust in excess of fifty knots. Due to the violence of the crash, the rudder stock twisted. The rudder blade is still joined to the boat, but cannot be used."
News - Rudder damage aboard COMMEUNSEULHOMME - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

He is heading to the South African coast to find shelter to make repairs.

On the head of the race the two first have already about a 1400nm advantage to the third. Alex has been loosing miles to Armel and it is now at 132nm.

That should be an enough margin to allow one of them to win...if they can bring the boats back on one piece. No reason to push the boats more than needed neither to sail faster than the third, if they chose the safest way. They can resolve things between them after passing the horn.

But logic is not always on the mind of racers and I suspect Alex will continue to push and Armel will continue to do the same not to let him to get close. So much better for the race interest
https://gis.ee/vg/?boat=2

[Steadman Uhlich]

POLUX,
Excellent post!

Great update with the quotes of first hand accounts, (thankfully in English too).

Thank you very much for keeping the updates and your comments coming!

And I liked your last lines too. A race it is! And all the more exciting with the two leaders and their positioning.

[Polux]

Didac Costa, the Catalan firefighter, that departed 4 days after the others, after having to return to fix a water entry on the hull, has finally starting to catch them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg7ucqs7FrE

One is already overtaken and I really wish he will be able to take the next one, Pieter Heerema.

There it is a lot of justice on that. Didac is sailing an old boat while Pieter is sailing a brand new boat with foils, very similar to the ones that are, or have been, on the head of the race. Cheers to Didac, a miniracer sailor that is showing that he can sail a big solo racer fast too!!!! Pieter is 900nm ahead. That is a lot, but Didac is recovering mile after mile.

Here, the very fast and beautiful boat of Pieter Heerema

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYICLKO9v3c

Tomorrow at about this time the two that are ahead, Alex and Armel, will be caught by a storm, time to be cautious...but will they be?
https://gis.ee/vg/?boat=19