Vendée Globe 2016-2017

LePacha said:
What I meant is I am wondering whether Armel was not sailing full speed knowing that it was a long race, or whether Alex was genuinely faster.
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Alex said last week that he was faster off the wind in stronger winds as he hd better sails. On port tack he has obviously had a speed disadvantage in foiling conditions - he did a FB piece last week too where he explained that he had a lot of leeway when tight to the wind on port tack due to the lack of foil, giving up VMG as well as pure boat speed when close hauled.

I had thought that Armel was far enough ahead until today, that Alex would have to plump for second, but I have changed my mind - He has sailed a blinder and got lucky in the doldrums, he took a lot of miles out of Amel in this zone, and they both now seem to be accelerating away from them at similar speed, so not only did he close the gap as Armel slowed, but he has not been left behind as Armel came out

I think Alex has enough extra boat speed to get past in a drag race on starboard, which I think is what they have for a couple of days.

Wht a great race.

Also an article in the Times today, so we may see some. More media coverage in the closing stages
 
LePacha said:
What I meant is I am wondering whether Armel was not sailing full speed knowing that it was a long race, or whether Alex was genuinely faster.
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err.. Have you not been following the race? AT was blisteringly fast until his foil broke. ALC caught and passed while AT was sailing on his chine with nothing but a stub. ALC was 800 miles ahead when AT rounded the horn and got onto STBD since when AT has hauled him in.

ALC has not been cruising he was faster on PT gibe and is slower on STBD.
 
Armel must be wounded - broken foils or damaged sails and isn't telling us about it because nothing else explains why/how he's lost so many miles to AT and JB.
 
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Andrew E said:
Armel must be wounded - broken foils or damaged sails and isn't telling us about it because nothing else explains why/how he's lost so many miles to AT and JB.
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By the number of short tacks he put in yesterday and his erratic boat speed I think he has just come across a patch of flukey Doldrums winds.

Now they both seem to be in similar winds tomorrow should tell us a lot.

___________________
 
Andrew E said:
Armel must be wounded - broken foils or damaged sails and isn't telling us about it because nothing else explains why/how he's lost so many miles to AT and JB.
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Maybe not.

There has been some discussion about this being a match race between ALC and AT. The basic strategy of match racing as leader, is to stay between the next guy and the finish. Do not get too far left or right.

In a very long race, where wind can be very different on different parts of the course, it is probably not a good idea to get too far ahead either. The leader might fall into a wind hole that the follower avoids.

ALC may have decided to sail "close cover" on AT. The rest are well back so probably not a worry to him.
 
Robert Wilson said:
Two great races going on in the southern ocean:-

Arnaud Boissieres
+Fabrice Amedeo
+Alan Roura
+Rich Wilson
all within 70nm of each other

and

Eric Bellion
+Conrad Colman
within 40 miles of each other

How many of you are rooting for Conrad and/or Rich Wilson?
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I am.
But I think Eric will prevail over Conrad.
 
It is a real nail biter.

Interesting fact from the 2100 GMT data set - both Armel and Alex logged 220NM in the prior 24 hours.

I am not all familiar with the sophistication of the Remora routing model but using the 2100 data set and advancing time to the max (168 hours) it predicts Armel increasing his lead by 100 miles.By which time they will be heading East on the homeward leg.
 
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Buck Turgidson said:
err.. Have you not been following the race? AT was blisteringly fast until his foil broke. ALC caught and passed while AT was sailing on his chine with nothing but a stub. ALC was 800 miles ahead when AT rounded the horn and got onto STBD since when AT has hauled him in.

ALC has not been cruising he was faster on PT gibe and is slower on STBD.
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That's the third Vendée for both. Alex is known to break all of his boats. Armel has extensive experience of this kind of races.

You will notice that Alex went very fast to start with and ended up breaking (again) his boat. So one can genuinely wonder whether it's a question of boats' performances or of cautious sailing.

So yep, been following the Vendée on a daily basis for an hour at least each day. And at the moment, I am sorry, but personally I am still wondering.
 
Plus his issues on the foresail...

They are all saying that when using the foils the risk of hitting whales is higher and that it makes for very uncomforting sailing conditions which are exhausting. So as this is endurance racing, I don't think that Armel took any risk in the beginning.

That being said he admitted he was gutted and found it very hard psychologically to see Alex catching up with him despite the advance he managed to build. But that was after the Horn and the wind systems were different for both. So we'll see.
 
Sailing with foils appears to be quite different depending on which boat you have. Some of the skippers are reporting noise, vibration and uncomfortable sailing, whilst Alex in particular says that it is more stable, smoother and he doesn't appear to suffer with the noise. The fact that some skippers rely on noise cancelling headphones tells a story.

You may be right about Armel, but I suspect that he wouldn't have been taking it easy at the start of the race while Alex was posting big numbers day after day. Coming from behind as he did, and very nearly getting a weather system ahead by Cape of Good Hope certainly scared the French collective, and you could almost hear them breath a sigh of relief when he hit something and dropped off the pace.

Now that he is back on the working foil, Alex is breaking records again. Armel has got to be worried about that.

In any case, this next week is going to be excellent to watch. If Alex really has the speed advantage, he should be able to run Armel down. If, as you say, Armel has been keeping something in reserve, now is the time to use it.
 
adwuk said:
Sailing with foils appears to be quite different depending on which boat you have. Some of the skippers are reporting noise, vibration and uncomfortable sailing, whilst Alex in particular says that it is more stable, smoother and he doesn't appear to suffer with the noise. The fact that some skippers rely on noise cancelling headphones tells a story.
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I attended a talk by somebody from the UK Americas Cup Challenge team and they vaguely, just in case there was somebody from another team spying on them, talked about foils - sound like they are designed with a very limited "sweet spot".

Not really sailing in by book, perhaps the crews should be licenced by the CAA and have the usual preflight briefing from the cabin staff. Personally, I would like to see a prize for the first flying vessel and first proper vessel home.
 
So unless mistaken, half the remaining distance will be on starboard tack, and the last half to the finish will be on port tack.
If it doesn't change, it's not great news for Alex. Even if I find him quite fast even on his broken foil.
 
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3d viewer still showing Alex has a starboard foil.

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