Vendee Globe Starts Today, Facts, Video, Discussion

[Steadman Uhlich]

Alex Thomson's updates! And despite his damaged boat (with missing foil on starboard) he is still in second place and just 100 miles behind Armel and 1,000 miles ahead of #3!). I admire his skill and his ability to stay up there, despite the damaged boat.

In this video clip he mentions his need to play it safe for a while now that he has such a long lead over #3.

Amazing that we can see all these videos with such clarity and so soon.

https://www.facebook.com/steadman.uh...73894432686547

https://www.facebook.com/AlexThomson...3321062015273/

[Steadman Uhlich]

Supreme Solo Sailors Show Some Special Stuff

Any sailors who follow the currently running singlehanded Vendee Globe Round the World Race will find this interesting. It simply answers the question "Where do the sailors sleep and what about a toilet?" The answers may surprise you, as several of the IMOCA skippers (including Alex Thompson) show us their boats. I think Alex on his boat HUGO BOSS has the best bucket and the best sleeping pad. Watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymgi...ature=youtu.be

If you want to share this video on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/steadman.uh...73785569364100

https://youtu.be/ymgiZTeKyqg

[Steadman Uhlich]

Alex Thomson's updates! And despite his damaged boat (with missing foil on starboard) he is still in second place and just 100 miles behind Armel and 1,000 miles ahead of #3!). I admire his skill and his ability to stay up there, despite the damaged boat.

In this video clip he mentions his need to play it safe for a while now that he has such a long lead over #3.

Amazing that we can see all these videos with such clarity and so soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Pu...KzQ-COtZ0kXrCH

[Polux]

First video that really shows in what kind of seas they are sailing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f2nnH_N1xw

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Polux

...
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

More information about this. They are sailing faster than the storm and they will enter it in about 10 hours, maybe less since they are sailing now faster, on the bigger winds near the storm with seas not yet formed.


They will be facing winds gusting 60k and 10m rough waves.

I have made a more detailed post about this on my blog.

[Polux]

Thomas Ruyant was able to repair his boat and is back on the race. On his words:

“In fact it was the water scoop for the ballast tank which damaged part of the bottom of the hull, when it split open as we crashed down onto a wave. I had an eight inch column of water, so needed to act quickly. I blocked it off, to start off with the trousers of my foulies as i gybed, furled the headsail and assessed the damage.

Then I filled it in using foam from the inside and a carbon seal. It seems to be working. It’s the port intake that can no longer function. When it happened I thought it was over for me. The engine wasn’t affected and I have already managed to start it twice. I lost a day with all that and the repairs themselves took me eight hours.”
News - Leaders knocking at the door to the Pacific, repair mode for others - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

Now he can only fill the water tanks by one of the sides of the boat. Some inconvenience and a small loss in absolute performance but not a big one.

Here Thomas Ruyant some days ago on a movie taken by that French Navy helicopter on the Indian Ocean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U7SLUR-f2M

His boat is a veteran of this race (not a good sign) while he is a rookie and one of the youngest sailors competing. Curiously has the old boat of Kito the Pavant, the one that abandoned his boat after an almost lost keel. The boat, as well as Pavant never completed the Vendee globe, last edition due to a collision with a fishing boat and on the 2009/09 edition due to having lost the mast. Let's see if it is a first, for the skipper and the boat, I mean to finish the Vendee Globe.

Here Groupe Bel, when it was Kito's boat

[Polux]

Posted in another thread and very interesting.: Romain Attanasio at anchor on South Africa, with the two rudders already out and trying to fix one of them (he has a spare one).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDCA...ature=youtu.be

We can see on these movie that his boat is a very old one and the diferences for the new ones are huge. Even very big regarding the one of Thomas Ruyant that we saw above and that is already on his 3rd Vendee Globe.

Attanasio was making a good race, giving the boat he has, among the semi-pros with better and more recent boats. His boat is from the last century

[JPA Cate]

This is really exciting coverage, Polux. Thank you very much.

I'm wondering if you can tell me how to pronounce correctly, Armel's surname? Thanks.

Ann

[Davidhoy]

Very cool video of Romain Attanasio anchored in Simonstown fixing his rudders! I grew up in Simonstown and learned to sail there - brings back lots of good memories, and not just a little nostalgia :-). Romain is lucky that the prevailing summer strong south easterly winds, known as the Cape Doctor, are not blowing. Hope he can get back in the race soon...

-David

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

This is really exciting coverage, Polux. Thank you very much.

I'm wondering if you can tell me how to pronounce correctly, Armel's surname? Thanks.

Ann

I am still laughing. I have trouble even writing it: le Cléac'h

"Il dérive du breton kloc'h, pluriel ancien klec'h, qui a également donné les patronymes armoricains Clec'h ou Le Cleoc'h."

Meaning that the derives from a Briton word that means Bells. It seems that it was given to the ones that sounded bells.

Briton is a Celtic language from the same family of Welsh. Celtic languages sound not like any other I know off...and it is not easy to pronounce Celtic words, except for themselves.

I don't know nothing about Briton pronunciation but I have salor friends that are Britons, like Armel. Next time I see them I will ask

Great sailors and great sailing tradition among the Britons, cheers to them for that.

[Polux]

Sometimes we just forget how good these guys are just because they are not among the first. I read this fabulous story told by Conrad Colman, the NZ sailor and I believe it is well worth sharing. The kind of stuff these guys do is amazing:

"When the wind shifted this afternoon from NW to N, I changed from my bigger reaching sail to my smaller flatter sail, the Solent or J2 which means its the second biggest jib on the boat.

When I unrolled it I saw that the pocket that holds the sail onto the cable was damaged and the sail risked to unzip itself completely. As the front of the sail is only exposed when the sail is unrolled I would have to fix it when the sail was working and the boat was fully powered up because I couldn't bear away onto a run because the Ice exclusion zone itsn't far to leeward.

So, with the wind blowing at 20 knots and boat speed sometimes the same, I climbed almost to the top of the mast and then hand stitched the pocket closed and then covered the repair with self adhesive sail cloth. Because I had a lot of stitching to do I did it i several sections, which of course meant I had to cut new lengths of string and re-thread the needle.

22 Metres in the air, one foot hooked around the sail and the other around the mast, bracing to stay stable and then concentrating on the needle I figured the closest possible comparison would be threading a needle on the back of a galloping horse while doing the splits and situps at the same time. I guess you need to have a head for heights!"

News - Conrad Colman: “It’s emotional and shocking� - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

And regarding the storm and the two first they are sayng now what I have said previously and posted already on my blog. It seems that we are seeing it the same way....and I can only fell very satisfied since those guys are metereologists and know much more dan I do.

Very interesting next 24 hours for the two first....well, very hard 24 hours for them, very interesting for us. More like that

"The low pressure system which is coming from the South of Tasmania is now moving towards the South of New Zealand while strengthening. It is going to cross the route of both leaders.

They will have to face Southwesterly winds up to 45 knots and heavy seas. Banque Populaire which possesses a good hundred miles lead will be closer to the center of this depression and should have winds stronger than Hugo Boss.

The question for the skippers is to know if they will have to slow down or not, as Yann Eliès did a few days ago to allow the low coming from Madagascar to pass ahead of him.

The faster they sail, the tougher the conditions will be. They need to find the right compromise between speed and the risk of breaking something on the
boat.

For Hugo Boss, that can be the opportunity to catch up a few miles over Banque Populaire."
News - The two leaders could be slowed down by a storm - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

[Polux]

Well, now we know, they did not let the storm pass ahead of them they both entered the storm racing with Alex trying to take the opportunity to win some miles over Armel.

This says a lot not only about these sailors but also about the seaworthiness of their boats, even so I wonder, how can they sleep on those conditions, that will not last just some hours but more than a day?

I find the comment from the Vendee globe site funny. They say they have throttled back on the storm....and that they are making 18/20K!!!! 20k on big waves and confused seas, yes, that is sailing carefully

"Gusty, squally winds averaging 40kts, big, confused seas compounded by an awkward wind angle are all contributing to the worst period yet for the two leaders of the Vendee Globe as they deal with a nasty, messy low pressure system. Both Armel Le Cleac’h and Alex Thomson have throttled back to preserve their boats and equipment as best they can but even so speeds are still averaging between 18 and 20 kts."
News - Dealer's choice: Antipodean duel in stormy low - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

They have not yet reached the worst of it, specially big seas and will have more 12 hours of it, at least for Armel because it seems to me that will take much more hours for Alex to come out even if they say, on the Vendee site that Alex is getting less stormy conditions now.

And they are not the only ones, more than 4000nm back (pretty incredible the distance the first have won over the group of semi-pros) are batling also with a storm. This one was taken from Alan Roura's boat.


And a nice video by the american Rich Wilson that sails near Alan Roura:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ5b7eX5l7g

[Steadman Uhlich]

"It was a Dark and Stormy..." DAY! Yes, day!

In this short video Alex gives us some insights into what it is like to be in the Southern Ocean in the dark aboard his boat which is sailing in 30 knot winds and 18 foot seas. This video is unlike any others I have ever seen, as he describes what it is like to be there alone...and in the dark. Watch!

https://youtu.be/KK2v1XTIjJI

https://www.facebook.com/steadman.uh...76895422386448

[Polux]

Alex Thompson is not a man of many words and he is a fearless sailor. He sent a short message regarding the conditions he and Armel are sailing in:

“It’s brutal. Absolutely brutal.”
“I do wonder why I do this sometimes.”
“It’s now when your mind starts to wander. What happens if the structure fails? What happens if you hit something? It is much harder to deal with the whole thing in the pitch black.”

They have been on those conditions on the last 24 hours and will have more 12 hours of it. I guess they are not able to sleep on these conditions.

If the two ahead have too much work to send any messages to the race committee, the NZ Colman is a prolific writer and so much better for us:

"It's getting windy and cold again, the passage of the cold front just hours away. After getting smacked with a 55-knot gust that could have torn my mainsail and stopped my race I have taken the second reef earlier this time. Now I'm a little stressed not about the boat, but about the race as the rest of my group are still a little bit faster. They all have newer and faster boats that are more optimised for these reaching angles (my strong points are upwind and downwind) so I guess it's inevitable but still I do my best to walk the line between giving up miles and assuring that I won't wreck the boat before I escape the South.....

I was standing in the cockpit considering whether I should perhaps shake out a reef to power up the boat to get through the confused seas when a stronger 35 knots gust came through and the boat slammed its nose down the valley of a wave and accelerated to 27.2 knots of speed. "Nope" I said to myself, I think we have all the power we need right now."

News - Brutal! Thomson and Le Cléach Should Escape Tasman Low Today. - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

[Polux]

Some days ago I mentioned a big problem to Thomas Ruyant, one of the very good sailors on this vendee, sailing an older boat. He had a huge amount of water entering the boat due to a breakage on the system to fill the water ballasts.

He tacked the boat to the other side, to put the opening out of water and went to work. Here a great movie showing how he had done to repair the hole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbHK-2JxgEg

He had previously several problems with the mainsail, you know, old boats give more work. Here it is him again working:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yxY9HBrSdQ

And with all that he is still 8th at 600nm from the 7th, Le Cam, that is right now with a lot of wind and doing 25k speed!!!!

Another one that goes fast on an old boat is the Spanish Didac Costa that leaved France 4 days after all the others, had already overtaken one boat and is chasing Pieter and his brand new boat. Even with much light winds he was faster last day. In some days he will have strong wind, like the ones ahead of him and then I believe we will have a very motivated Didac in attack mode. I am starting to be a fan of the Catalan firefighter.
https://gis.ee/vg/