The GGR race, discussion and news

[estarzinger]

just for fun . . . routing for the most eastern and western boats in the front row

Slats:



Peche (routing swinging a bit wider with more speed)



Peche is as shown 66nm ahead . . . . but it's still a virtual tie because that small amount I would not pay much attention - Peche may have a more difficult doldrums than Slats in the more western position.

Also, they both line up along 33S for the approach to the cape . . . but that's 15 days out and the forecast is quite likely to change by then.

We can get better comparisons after the doldrums

Note: Assumes same polars for both boats.

[Snowpetrel]

Thanks Evans. Not many serious races these days are done without routing software, only the minitransat comes to mind. So not having access to the these tools is going to change the game a fair bit. Also the boats are slower, especially downwind and reaching so 'catching" a system isn't really going to work for them.

In some ways the skippers are going to be busy, the old school celestial nav without calculators takes a fair bit of time. And trying to weather route by eye from hand plotted weather charts is very time consuming.

Or they can just go back to basics and follow the traditional sailing ship route and forget about getting too clever. May even pay off better in the long run.

It is likely to be a far longer race than any of them have done before, by day 250 you still need to be chilled and on game.

[estarzinger]

^^ yes, agreed. I remember how much effort when into just figuring out where you were in the celestial days.

Re: weather, I would guess that there is massive leverage in getting the south Atlantic right, but then not so much after that across the southern ocean, and up the Atlantic (just try to keep the average boat speed up), until they get to the Azores high in the approach to the finish.

In the southern ocean - are there any sort of limits how low they can go? You can save real mileage, but you get into ice and really **** weather to do it - the vendee and volvo have ice limits or gates to prevent people from taking too high risks.

[barnakiel]

[QUOTE=

(...)

the old school celestial nav without calculators takes a fair bit of time.

(...)

[/QUOTE]

Are they denied sight reduction tables too then?

I think with the right tables one can get a line in less than 5 minutes, plus the sight taking time.

?

b.

[estarzinger]

26) I am not keen on sailing deep south to be competitive, so will there be some “Marks” to go around in the Southern Ocean?
The 1968 GGR entrants sailed mostly in the roaring 40’s so there will be some rounding marks announced in the sailing instructions to stop competitors sailing too far south and spreading the fleet for safety reasons.

This answers my above question - there are some limits how far south they can go, which will make the routing decisions down there much easier

14) Can I use my motor during the Race?
YES. Propeller shafts will not be sealed and all entrants must be able to motor as per the original design spec for the boat and carry at least 20 gallons of diesel at the start of the race.

This is interesting - I would think it worthwhile to carry enough fuel to punch thru two doldrums crossings.

[barnakiel]

[QUOTE=

(...)

In the southern ocean - are there any sort of limits how low they can go?

(...)

[/QUOTE]

If you mean how HIGH then I believe it is 45 and 46 degrees.

It will be terrible anyway for many of them. I think few will make it till the end.

b.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

If you mean how HIGH.

Yea, I still consider the south pole the bottom of the world, so "low".

The route limits seem to be :

"Leaving:

● 44 degrees South latitude to starboard
● Waypoint 46 degrees South Latitude and 174 degrees’ west longitude to
starboard.
● 46 degrees’ south latitude to starboard until east of 115 degrees’ west
longitude.
11
● 50 degrees’ south latitude and 90 degrees west longitude to port."

They will generally want to be sailing right on that southern edge to reduce miles.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Are they denied sight reduction tables too then?

I think with the right tables one can get a line in less than 5 minutes, plus the sight taking time.

?

b.

They would be allowed sight reduction tables, and you are right, it makes things pretty quick, but still doing a round of stars would probably take 1/2- 3/4 of an hour all up on a rolling boat. So if you are going to get fancy and do morning stars, morning sun, noon, afternoon sun and evening stars plus the days run calcs and distance to go it's going to chew up a reasonable chunk of the day.

Offshore you can get by with much less, but it all takes time and energy.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

26)
14) Can I use my motor during the Race?
YES. Propeller shafts will not be sealed and all entrants must be able to motor as per the original design spec for the boat and carry at least 20 gallons of diesel at the start of the race.

This is interesting - I would think it worthwhile to carry enough fuel to punch thru two doldrums crossings.

I wondered when this was going to come up. It was an interesting decision by the race committee. Strategically it would make sense to burn the diesel near the start (say now to cross the ITCZ)to avoid lugging it's weight around the world. But then you loose the safety benefit of having reserve fuel onboard to deal with a lost mast or a navigation mistake. Or simply to get into a tricky harbour.

[estarzinger]

^^ I would have guessed that on these boats, the speed gain would be worth carrying the weight of all the fuel you can carry - punching directly thru the two doldrums, and cutting the corners of the S. Atlantic high and the Azores high (if you still have fuel then) plus any accidental high-pressure ridges you get stuck in (there are such ridges even down in the south)

I doubt the weight would slow the boats enough (especially in the southern ocean) to offset those potential gains.

Back in the original race, I suspect the engines were not reliable enough to count on after a bit of time at sea, so the fuel weight was just dead weight, but today they should be able to count on the engines.

[Bleemus]

Going down the African coast has been tried before and has always ended in tears. I will be surprised if anyone chooses that route.

[Snowpetrel]

The tactical ramifications of the engine rule extends to boat choice. You are only allowed standard tankage aboard. So the biscay 36 has 180 odd litres vs the rustlers 150 litres. That equates to about a day of extra motoring at low revs. Also would make sense to overprop the boat to maximise calm fuel efficiency and motorsailing at the expense of ability to punch into any wind. If you can get efficencies of say 1 litre per hour at 4 knots that gives you about 600 miles. Still even this probably won't make the african route pay off, but used wisely it may get you into some wind much earlier or out of a hole.

[moniia]

GGR insists on "film gates" (no prizes for guessing why) and very interestingly puts one almost in Hobart harbour.
I know only one person so far who may be happy with that.
All others think is an utter madness. If you don't know why, that may help (oops, cannot put images)
Just look at the map of the route of GGR and then on the chart of Tasmania....
I'm not sure that as a skipper I would be at all happy with going there. Not mentioning anything else, that will guarantee some sleepless time...

(OK, I'm positive I would be not going there. Btw, that's one - and one of the smaller ones- of the reasons why I didn't try to get into race after finally it allowed boats like mine...)

[moniia]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

The tactical ramifications of the engine rule extends to boat choice. You are only allowed standard tankage aboard. So the biscay 36 has 180 odd litres vs the rustlers 150 litres. That equates to about a day of extra motoring at low revs. Also would make sense to overprop the boat to maximise calm fuel efficiency and motorsailing at the expense of ability to punch into any wind. If you can get efficencies of say 1 litre per hour at 4 knots that gives you about 600 miles. Still even this probably won't make the african route pay off, but used wisely it may get you into some wind much earlier or out of a hole.

On this topic - never bothered to check if they are allowed solar panels (as they weren't present in 1968) but my guess will be not - so fuel is necessary along the route for electricity production. There is not a lot of it used but they still need it so they have to be able to produce it.
My boat uses only 20-30Ah a day and has some solars (quite good size) but I still count on using an engine for at least 1 1/2 hrs every 5 days. That equates to around 90 motohours in a whole trip plus extra 10 counted for emergency use and there is my fuel gone (I have about 100ltrs tanks). No allowance for motoring - anyway, 100 hrs at 5kn it is only 500nm on the route of at least 26000!

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by moniia

electricity production. . . . . No allowance for motoring

On our non-stop from cape horn to Australia, really the only passage we ever did where we were potentially fuel constrained, we did find you could easily time your battery charging with motoring thru the high-pressure ridges and efficiently get both extra miles and electricity.

This motoring aspect does add an interesting dimension to the boat selection, fit-out (you could, in theory, have a near-zero consumption boat), and fuel usage.

Does anyone know if any (of today's) boats are using water generators or solar? Water generators were certainly quite technically possible back in the original race days, the technology has not even changed much - solar was also available back then but much much less efficient than today.