Vendee Globe Starts Today, Facts, Video, Discussion

[Polux]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Yes. The pictures you show (very beautiful images too!) all show varieties and various live stages of sulas. The video by Alex also seems to show a bird behaving like a sula, esp. the moment when it rapidly 'dives'. A petrel does not do that.

I cannot tell from the video but a marine biologist would. Sulas (gannets, boobies, etc) live in the area where he is now. As do petrels. Otherwise, offshore, there is not much of bird species variety. I have only ever seen gannets, petrels, tropics and albatroses far offshore. In the video it is neither of them.

My bet is on a gannet then.

b.

Here we call to sulas Alcatraz. It is not the same species of the above bird even if not far on the evolution chain the white one with blue eyes is a Morus bassanus, Ganso patola for us..

This one is (for us) a Alcatraz, a Sula leucogaster:


Petrels (Puffinus puffinus) are very common here and on the med and have nothing to do with that. We call them Fura-bucho.

I would say it is a Morus bassanus, since it is white. Yes, a Ganet in English.

[Polux]

Alex saying about what I said some hours ago:

" “There’s a ridge and I could catch up with Armel - it depends who gets across the ridge first,” Thomson said. “If there are no dramas, he should cross the ridge before me and then he’ll win the race.

It’s getting more and more difficult to make a move, but I remain pragmatic and optimistic. Maybe something’s going to happen.

I certainly see us closing up. According to the computer I’ll finish five hours behind him but we’ll have to wait and see - you never know.” Thomson said he expected two days of fairly light winds, then two days of fast sailing before hitting the ridge.

“After this light patch I need to be within fifty miles of him,” he said. “In a few days I could make up the fifty miles. If I don’t get within fifty miles by the end of this light stuff, my chances of beating him are quite slim.”"
News - Thomson eyes final assault; Dick fourth in the north - Vendée Globe 2016-2017

He seems highly motivated and we will have race till the end...if he manages to stay relatively close to Armel when they leave behind the high pressure zone.

So far so good, he won more some miles to Armel, it is now at 201nm and doing 3.5k more than Armel. He should continue to win for 9 hours, than lose something for winning again and by a lot.

[Polux]

Like I said, forecast on these very unstable conditions are always changing and this time they changed for the worst: very light winds on the way of the two leaders and for this time it seems to me the routing of Alex is better.

According with the forecast, that may not come true, Alex seems to me in a much Better position than Armel that is almost stopped on a big hole without wind doing only 3.6k while Alex is doing 11.9K.

Alex, more to the West chose the longer route with more wind, Armel the shorter one with less wind.

Ahead Alex has much better wind then Armel and the 151nm of distance are closing rapidly.

[Polux]

The race reached a new suspense point. I am pretty sure now that Armel had done a bad choice in routing, going to much to East. He is trying to correct now going west but he is almost stopped on the water making 1.3K while Armel is making 8.4K and closing quickly the 131nm distance that separates them.

Or maybe Armel had not made any mistake because looking to the place he is on the forecast there is wind there, between 6 and 10k that would be more than enough for him to sail at about the same speed as Alex.

On the forecast it shows that Alex is almost entering a no zone wind and I mean really no wind, not weak winds but with all this discrepancy between forecasts and reality who can know?
https://gis.ee/vg/

I believe this incertitude should be maddening for the ones that are racing, most of all when they fall on a wind hole that was not supposed to be there and remained almost stopped seeing his rival closing.

A strange race, one where the mental atitude and the capacity to endure will be as important as the ability to sail on light winds all of this with some luck by the middle.

Strange, but great, with lots of suspense around. This risks to be the Vendee where the two first arrive separated by less time

[robert sailor]

It's making for a good race, I'd like to see Alex win this one. I had a chance to have several "teas" with his Father, Peter and so I'm a little bit bias towards the results. Plus I know the French will go insane if Alex wins which has certain entertainment value. The British and French have had a long rivalry and this may be quite the event. Very interesting and thanks for posting the results Polux.

[Suijin]

What an extraordinary finish. Tens of thousands of miles and they're going to finish mere hours apart. It's akin to a photo finish of a marathon, but even more improbable.

[Pelagic]

I remember that at the beginning the leaders were breaking a variety of time records for the Vendee

What is the status now with this difficult return?

[Polux]

Curiously even with the new boats, not a new 24 hour record (even if Alex Thompson had matched the old one, even going very slightly over it, but not enough to be considered a new record).

Regarding the race record and a new record for solo monohull circumnavigation I was pretty sure that Armel was going to beat the record by a huge margin since he passed the Horn with 5 days advance over the time of the previous record holder (Gabart), but now he has only about 3 days advantage.

I believe one of them is going to beat that record but not by the 5 days advance that Armel had on the horn. If they make 3 days less they would be lucky.

Regarding the race that wind hole was really there and Alex went inside. He is now making only 4.2K while Armel is going away doing 13k. But soon we will be out of it and Armel will have a low wind zone to cross. They are separated by 123nm now.

The passage on this unstable zone, overall, it seems to me favorable to Alex, but in 32 hours Armel should be the first to touch strong winds and going away doing 3 or 4k better. After that they will be on the speedway till that high pressure ridge near France.

It seems that Alex is trying to go more to the west were the winds are stronger (in 58 hours)...but they can be too strong and come with bad seas and in that case it will turn out on a disadvantage and also on a bigger risk to break the boat, but Alex has to risk that if he wants to have a chance of winning.

[Polux]

Well, weather this time changed more favorably regards the forecast and it seems Armel knew what he was doing. Probably he had just better weather information or know much more than me. The last one is absolutely for sure and he is helped by a top routing program, as Alex is.

What matters is that they are going to come out of the light stuff sooner, in about 18 hours and then for several hours Armel will have stronger winds.

For know, Armel is taking the shortest way with less wind, but that now doesn't look as bad as yesterday, even if some of that light winds can easily turn in almost no wind at all while Alex is going to do more miles with a strong wind but at a worse angle (more upwind).

After that they will go at speed in medium to strong winds, that will pass to strong for Alex, that is going to try a somewhat risky passage near a low pressure center on an attempt to gain miles at speed. He needs to risk everything now.

The chances of Alex to win become slim and I don't think Armel is going to have less than 100nm advantage, possibly more, when they reach that high pressure ridge near France and the finish. If it is that so no way Alex is going to win. On those conditions 100nm correspond to about a 12 hour diference.

This race is becoming very similar to last vendee where the roles were inverted and Armel was the chaser. Then surprisingly a very young François Gabart, a rookie in the race, showed why he is now one of the best solo sailors. Since the horn he was able to resist to a relentless Armel pursuit and the diference at the end between the two was of only a bit more than 3 hours!!!! At the time at the horn, I though Armel was going to catch and beat young Gabart and I bet many thought the same, but no, Gabart was Imperial.

Let's see if that record is beaten and if the two first will come with an even lesser diference.

Alex seem in very good condition and ready for the final attack:

“I feel physically exhausted – I've been trying to sleep as much as possible over the last few days to be ready for the light wind, but because of the sheer length of the race it does exhaust you,”...

“My body is getting close to what it can take before needing a serious amount of rest. I don't feel as fit as I did before the race, at times I feel a bit weak. I remain positive though, I'm competing in this race for the fourth time which has been my dream all my life. My first goal was, number one, to finish, second to finish on the podium and third to win the race. To be less than 2,000 miles from the finish and still be I contention to reach all my goals is great.”

As usually Armel is very short on words and the only thing they manage to got out of him (yesterday) was this:

"Jusqu’au bout il va falloir se battre, ça me met une pression supplémentaire mais je suis à fond, je ne vais rien laisser passer ! "

That translated gives something like this : "Till the end I have to fight, that puts some extra stress on me, but I am in full speed mode and I will not let anything pass!"

The last phrase is a bit enigmatic, in French too, since it can mean that he will not lose the concentration and will sail as fast as he can all the time or that he will not let anybody overtake him.

Well, anyway, very much Armel like: short and incisive

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

It's making for a good race, I'd like to see Alex win this one. I had a chance to have several "teas" with his Father, Peter and so I'm a little bit bias towards the results. Plus I know the French will go insane if Alex wins which has certain entertainment value. The British and French have had a long rivalry and this may be quite the event. Very interesting and thanks for posting the results Polux.

reality is, french are better sailors. English like rules for everything which is sometimes good. French have all the records and all the yacht industry, and of course Custeau. But surprises do happen in life.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

reality is, french are better sailors. English like rules for everything which is sometimes good. French have all the records and all the yacht industry, and of course Custeau. But surprises do happen in life.

If you said, in general the French are better single handers, I would agree with you but just using the term sailors I would say it's damn tough to beat that little we nation called New Zealand. Look at the top helmsman in the world sailing races like the Americas Cup and New Zealand plays a big role.

[robert sailor]

The rivalry I was speaking about between England and France goes back hundreds of years and the British certainly came out on top but it remains to this day. There is no denying the skills and tenacity of the French single hander, they are in a league of their own. The fact that they build boats is a completely different skill set. The Germans build lots of boats too but are not that well represented in the top tier of sailing.

[Polux]

I agree New Zealand has some of the best racing sailors in the world, especially if we look at the small population, Australia too but they have not a culture regarding solo or short crew sailing that I believe will be the future of sail racing. All major French offshore races are or duo races or solo races, no matter the size of the boat.

The only thing offshore big with crew is the Jules Verne trophy (the absolute circumnavigation sail record)

I believe the best new Zealand has as solo racers is Conrad Colman, 10th on this race and to learn and to reach the actual expertise he had to move to France (9 years ago) and since them he is learning with the French and participating on the French solo races.

If New Zealanders give him a hand and a new boat for the next big solo and duo races till the next vendee I believe he will be among the best. The problem is that NZ and Australia is far away from France and on the region short crew racing means nothing (they have only a minor race I know off, with all kinds of boats). They don't even have a duo class on the Sydney Hobart a thing that exist already in most major European races and guessing by the conservationism that rules on those parts in what regards offshore sail racing, I doubt that will happen on the next years.

[Pelagic]

I think both the spirit and personal challenges of the Vendee, transcends this national pissing contest.

We should all be grateful to the French people for organizing such races.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I think both the spirit and personal challenges of the Vendee, transcends this national pissing contest.

We should all be grateful to the French people for organizing such races.

I understand what your saying but most nations have certain things they are very good at and the whole nation supports these skills AND it's a commercial success, this is the case with the French single handed sailing. Go to the USA and maybe it's football or basketball, same thing, everyone in the country loves it AND it's a commercial success. New Zealand, that little country of around 4 million people has staged an America's Cup entry for years and the country has been behind it...where is France? In France it's not their thing and they are not competitive and it would not be a commercial success so as much as I'm enjoying the current race I don't feel grateful to France, no more than I do when watching the Super bowl.