Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms vendee globe race

Started today. Single handed round the world race - something like 70 days through probably shorter with the modern foilers. Worth watching on you tube.

Vendee globe

There is a fleet tracking app somewhere but I havent found it yet or maybe it isnt open since they started just a couple of hours ago.

Howard,
Map The thought that they sleep during the race is hard to imagine. In all weathers, and at race speed. Brave people.

Markus

Yes Howard I will be following it - these yachts are fascinating machines even if they dont point that much. We will see the proof of this in the next Whitbread x VolvoX
Ocean race I am expecting them to gap away from the old Volvo 65's .

The longest I managed single handing was a passage from Isla Mujeres to Key West, around 380nm covered in 48 hours. The second night was really tough with traffic and a wind over current situation that had the bow coming out of the back side of the swell into fresh air then crashing down. Up until that point I managed some cat napping, 15-20 minutes at a time, aided by a radar warning zone I set up. I also had an AIS transponder which helped with the heavy stuff.

Total respect for these guys though.

Boy! How I would love to fly one of those things.

When I was in my 30s I had planned to do a round the world cruise but life and lack of funds got in the way. Plenty of solo one day outings but I usually preferred to have company particularly on overnighters
I never had any dreams of long distance solo racing but I can really admire those who do it.

I was glued to the box yesterday, watching the start.

I have nothing but admiration for these guys. Just to get around and finish is a massive achievement, regardless of the finishing position. There are many more people to have climbed Everest than have sailed single handed around the world without stopping.

That there are 4 British entries (3 of them women) in what is a very French event, is fantastic. For those who aren't VG fans, Alex Thomson skippering Hugo Boss is competing in his 5th VG, having finished 2nd last time, and 3rd the time before. His team have the biggest budget, his boat the very latest. The pressure is on him as race favourite.

Sam Davies in Initiatives Coeur is in with a shout. She is very experienced, with a 4th place in 2008/9, and her boat, although built in 2010, (so previous generation), has been converted to foils.

Further back amongst the older boats (without foils) we have Miranda Merron and Pip Hare. I don't know much about Miranda, but one of the guys I occasionally race with sometimes sails with Pip. They finished 2nd in the 2017 3 peaks race (sailing AND running up mountains) two handed. She is incredibly fit, and very determined. Her entry is very Corinthian in nature; her objective to get to the finish in her 20 year old boat, and to beat Ellen MacArthur's second-place time in the 2000/2001 event. If she manages this, she will have done brilliantly.

The latest boats are extraordinary looking things, as you say Peter, they are flying machines. I would dearly love to have a sail on one. What remains to be seen, is how many of the foiling boats manage to get around with foils intact. In the last event, Thomson damaged a foil, but still managed to finish 2nd by only a few hours.

Much though I love this event, I do however have some deep held reservations about long distance single handed racing. COLREGS Rule 5 states: "Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate to the prevailing circumstances and conditions" This is just not possible for a single hander, who has to sleep occasionally. In many ways, I'd rather see these sort of events as two-handed races.

In practical rather than legal terms I dont think its too much of an issue as shown by the lack of collisions. As the route planning charts show, the traditional sail routes round the world are quite different to the motor vessel routes, plus of course the yachts have collision avoidance / warning software and active radar transponders. The weakness is their speed. Dont know about you but my 3G radar is uselsess much more than 6 mile range even mounted up the mast. Thats OK for me doing 6kn but if I were saling at 25kn and with a motor vessel at 20kn thats not much more than 5 mins maximum warning.

I couldnt do this sort of a race. The sailing is one thing - its the endurance and determination that I lack. Sadly one of my mistakes in life is that I had the chance of crewing on the British Steel Challenge round the world race, and I decided not to go because of job reasons.

I remember chatting to French single hander whilst riding out the hurricane season in Venezuela, his laissez faire approach had him getting a full nights sleep every night during an Atlantic crossing on the basis "there's not much out there". Bit extreme maybe

Realistically though with modern aids, particularly AIS which relays via VHF full vessel details, typically with a minimum 50 mile range, and with a transponder yours to them, you have a very good picture of what is out there and your presence to them. Also any number of crew on board will not help if you hit a partially sunken container, however unlikely given their self sinking valves.

True, although Alex Thomson might point out to you that alarms don't necessarily wake you up (remember when he crashed into Guadeloupe two years ago in the Route du Rhum ? ). Or a sleeping Olivier de Kersauson wrecking IDEC on the Pointe de Penmarc'h as he made his way home after beating the Transatlantic sail record in 2005 when his electrics tripped.

I agree with Howard that at 5 or 6 its it's not much of an issue, but at 25kts things happen pretty quickly.

For those of you who like this sort of thing, there's a film about American solo sailor Mike Plant, who was lost at sea en route to the start of the 2nd Vendée Globe which is on Amazon Prime

https://www.amazon.com/Coyote-Mike-Plant-Story/dp/B07DYBRN3J

I enjoyed the film. Extraordinary life story of a rather flawed character, whose life seems to have been a catalogue of recklessness and risk-taking.