Vendee Globe and Alex Thomson / Hugo Boss

[matt1]

I think he has been headed & is in lighter winds. His positioning still shows he should be first at the freer wind. Don't forget rankings and "dist to leader" are irrelevant really and don't tell the picture as they reflect "Distance to the finish" presumably along some kind of rhumb line. All that matters is who gets into the freer and stronger wind first. On that basis Alex's positioning looks good

 

[TLouth7]

He seems to have hung onto the official lead for another 4 hours, back up to the same pace as his chasers. Maybe it's because he woke up!

 

[flaming]

He's getting caught toot sweet. The 3 behind are consistently faster. I don't see how this sailing inside can be beneficial for best performance. Something not right. Even JLC on an old non foiling boat is keeping up

The conditions they are in, moderate air reaching, are the absolute sweet spot for the boats like linked out and Apivia with their massive foils. In contrast HB has smaller foils more optimised for downwind conditions. My suspicion is simply that right now they are a bit quicker, but once they catch the Westerlies and turn East for, oh, about 9000 miles to Cape horn HB should be faster.

 

[cherod]

He seems to have hung onto the official lead for another 4 hours, back up to the same pace as his chasers. Maybe it's because he woke up!

ha ha ,, maybe ,, doubled the lead in the last 4 hours from 7 to 14 miles,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, looking further ahead , looks like he could have a good run all the way down west but Le Cam could half his mileage with some favourable ( ? ) looking beating conditions to the cape , but alex would then be further south to pick up the southern breeze .. mmmm

 

[RJJ]

.......makes me think of Samuel Goldwyn's famous remark "The harder I work, the luckier I get".

Alex deserves any good luck. When he is unlucky, he never seems to whine about it.

I have to say he gets my support, especially this time around, exactly as you say. A real sportsman - in fact they are all terrific sportsmen. As are the women. No tantrums / diving seen here.

Interesting, the debate about Cam and a non-foiler. Which race edition should we compare his performance to? Has anyone compared his position now with performances from 10-15 years ago, when his boat was state-of-the-art?

 

[cherod]

I have to say he gets my support, especially this time around, exactly as you say. A real sportsman - in fact they are all terrific sportsmen. As are the women. No tantrums / diving seen here.

Interesting, the debate about Cam and a non-foiler. Which race edition should we compare his performance to? Has anyone compared his position now with performances from 10-15 years ago, when his boat was state-of-the-art?

i would imagine he has some updates since then

 

[TBolt]

The lead is very difficult to quantify as its just calculated by distance along an idealised route.
We will only really know if and when their paths cross and then only at that instant unless they really play follow my leader.
For what its worth AT is about 40nm further south and he and TR are about 100nm apart.

 

[flaming]

The lead is very difficult to quantify as its just calculated by distance along an idealised route.
We will only really know if and when their paths cross and then only at that instant unless they really play follow my leader.
For what its worth AT is about 40nm further south and he and TR are about 100nm apart.

Yep. Goal here is to be first to the Cape of good Hope. The question is if that is best served by max south to hook into the southern ocean westerlies asap, or a more direct route.

 

[Frogmogman]

I have to say he gets my support, especially this time around, exactly as you say. A real sportsman - in fact they are all terrific sportsmen. As are the women. No tantrums / diving seen here.

Interesting, the debate about Cam and a non-foiler. Which race edition should we compare his performance to? Has anyone compared his position now with performances from 10-15 years ago, when his boat was state-of-the-art?

You only have to see Alex Thomson's sincere reaction to news, such as the damage to Charal or the dismasting of Corum to see what a decent guy and good sport he is. That he is as popular in France as the French competitors says a lot for how he is viewed.

As regards the relative performance, I suspect we'll see Jean le Cam take a more Easterly route as his boat is faster on the wind than the foilers, so he can take a punt on sailing a shorter distance. Thomson will be leaning towards sailing as free as possible and maximising boat speed.

I loved that on his last video le Cam said that he was competing against Ferraris in his trusty old Renault 4 (or words to that effect).

 

[flaming]

As regards the relative performance, I suspect we'll see Jean le Cam take a more Easterly route as his boat is faster on the wind than the foilers, so he can take a punt on sailing a shorter distance. Thomson will be leaning towards sailing as free as possible and maximising boat speed.

I doubt it to be honest. JLC may be slightly quicker upwind compared to the foilers, but don't forget that at one point this was the cutting edge boat for this course, which is predominately downwind. He's still a lot, lot faster downwind than upwind and his ideal routing will not be massively different from the foilers, just a few % slower.

 

[cherod]

if you look at the 1400 time you can see that he is already pointing more E ( well less W ) than anyone else ,,, 1700 might show more .

 

[Spyro]

He seems to have hung onto the official lead for another 4 hours, back up to the same pace as his chasers. Maybe it's because he woke up!

His latest update mentions that. He seems to have picked up the pace a bit now.

 

[savageseadog]

He should perhaps be thinking of putting a cover on those behind him?

 

[E39mad]

Alex now starting to pull away from his closest rivals albeit slowly.

Great tactics again as he will ease the sheets first looking at the weather files.

 

[cherod]

Alex now starting to pull away from his closest rivals albeit slowly.

Great tactics again as he will ease the sheets first looking at the weather files.

Maybe a bit optomistic there , was reading / watching something recently about the french foils being bigger so more suited for current conditions where AT s being smaller are more suited to the S ocean conditions , are the SO miles more than the two trips ( up and down ) the atlantic added together ?

 

[E39mad]

Maybe a bit optomistic there , was reading / watching something recently about the french foils being bigger so more suited for current conditions where AT s being smaller are more suited to the S ocean conditions , are the SO miles more than the two trips ( up and down ) the atlantic added together ?

We'll see .... the route down the South Atlantic currently looks like downwind sailing towards the roaring forties hence the easing the sheets comment.

 

[cherod]

We'll see .... the route down the South Atlantic currently looks like downwind sailing towards the roaring forties hence the easing the sheets comment.

yes ,, good down wind on the ( longer ) W route with good winds and perhaps getting to the Southern ocean breeze sooner but further ,, but a beat down the E side ( shorter ) ,, just conjecture . btw,, did you see ATs message today about the bullying,, ? very nice .

 

[flaming]

Maybe a bit optomistic there , was reading / watching something recently about the french foils being bigger so more suited for current conditions where AT s being smaller are more suited to the S ocean conditions , are the SO miles more than the two trips ( up and down ) the atlantic added together ?

My #223 maybe...?!

Alex’s team are very open that they ran thousands of simulations of rtw races with different polars, and concluded that it didn’t matter how slow you were upwind or reaching provided you were the fastest thing on the water downwind. Then they designed and optimised their boat accordingly.

Which is why the others must be a little concerned that he’s leading now...

 

[cherod]

My #223 maybe...?!

Alex’s team are very open that they ran thousands of simulations of rtw races with different polars, and concluded that it didn’t matter how slow you were upwind or reaching provided you were the fastest thing on the water downwind. Then they designed and optimised their boat accordingly.

Which is why the others must be a little concerned that he’s leading now...

yes , can believe that ,,, but do you know that they are concerned ?

 

[cherod]

My #223 maybe...?!

Alex’s team are very open that they ran thousands of simulations of rtw races with different polars, and concluded that it didn’t matter how slow you were upwind or reaching provided you were the fastest thing on the water downwind. Then they designed and optimised their boat accordingly.

Which is why the others must be a little concerned that he’s leading now...

TY