[Closed] Vendee Globe Yacht race starts this Sunday, great footage of the new gen yachts

Alex has broken one foil. This foil is a mini wing underwater, lifting the boat up and pushing it back upright against the wind.

A bit like a running with a flattish tyre on a rally car.....goes round one corner well, but the othe way is awful.

The boats (New generation) have a foil (like a daggerboard) either side of the beam (middle section of the boat, just in front of the cockpit, just behind the mast) These foils are deployed when on either tack, they "dig" into the water when healed over - so Starboard Foil = deployed on Starboard tack, and as they are shaped like an airplane wing provide "lift" and also act as a stabiliser. The last Gen boats had similar but the just went up/down in roughly the same position and did a similar job, these new Gen foils not only go up/down but in/out so theres more tuning available.. think of them like stabilisers on a bike... fit them close the the rear wheel and there is less stability, fit them further out and theres more.. the lift element helps the boat track cleaner and higher tot he wind thus sailing better VMG (cleaner wind angles)

Alex lost his Starboard foil about a week ago when he hit something submerged, it broke off and now he's only go the Port one. In the film you can see the Port foil in the air as Alex is on Stb tack, so he should have the Starboard foil in the water, but it isn't there.. this means he can't sail quite as stable nor high. Actually you can see the boat roll around in the clip.. whilst this is probably due to the sea state as much as anything, you would expect a smoother pitch and yaw with the foil deployed.
He does make comment about it in the clip..

It in French, but you get the gist.

[img] [/img]

Ignore - cross-post with bikebuoy's
(however, "le ballast" - that diagram makes it look like it's mobile and has been shifted to the "useful" side, or is that just omitting the left side for simplicité ?

(must be massive force going through those things - hard (or else biggish motors?) to set/lock/trim ?)

[s]

Alex has broken on foil

"foil" implies lift to me (though I guess downforce is just the reverse - or does it lift the entire hull to reduce drag?)[/s]

Hugo Boss looks over canvassed to me and slower than Banque Populaire

It was my first thought too however these boats are designed to sail more heeled than a typical boat (part of reason for twin rudder) and perhaps Alex has had to adjust the "mode" further due to the foil loss ? Also as I watched it agin (longer clip on AT facebook ?) most of the time Boss is pretty flat, only seems to be in bigger puffs she heels right up.

Re the heel thats certainly a lesson I learnt (and mistake repeated) that its often faster to reduce sail and keep the boat a bit flatter - hull shape more efficient and leeway (going sideways) reduced. Sailing shorthanded its easy to get lazy and try and "hang on" to the sails you have up, These guys are tough and very disciplined at sail changes / reefing main. They'll have a very good feel for matching configurations depending on wind speed and angle, waves etc. We used to have a card we'd drawn up they'll have it electronically too as part of routing software.

Overcanvassed or not (and I'd agree that was a lot of heel), he's doing a great job of hanging on to Le Cleach and has now reduced the gap to under 8 miles! That's close racing after almost 10,000 miles, and another 15,000 to go!

That footage is frankly incredible, proper goosebumps on the back of my neck stuff.

I wonder if Alex was heeled over so far for dramatic effect and to look good on tv? He certainly gives 'BOSS' a good showing 🙂

And related to the previously unanswered question - do these boats have mobile ballast that can be pumped from side to side?

Yes they have water ballast

And that video proves Alex doesn't have his starboard foil (some people were suggesting mind games)

I'm sure he has lost his SB foil, but I'm not sure that you could prove it from the footage. It'll be interesting to see the stump.

Has gone over the edge to saw it off yet? To be that sounded unnecessary - surely just retract the stump in to the hull. Another example of Alex 'bigging it up for the media'?. Still gets mucho respect from me though.

We all know that a gust of >10knts will make the boat heel over, add sea state and waves and you get the effect Alex shows, however I think because of the lost foil he is intentionally heeling it over to dig the chine in the water to aid "lift".

Great footage, love the conversations between Armel and Alex and the Navy..

I'm sure he has lost his SB foil, but I'm not sure that you could prove it from the footage. It'll be interesting to see the stump

My thought was whether the bow would be burying so much if he had the lift from a stbd foil

Most of the footage Boss is not that heeled. Only the bit when he's on deck and with the flag (absolutely brilliant imo 🙂 that will be THE image/video of the event if he wins and maybe anyway)

Yes they have water ballast, quite complex with a number of tanks so they can trim side/side and fore and aft. The Spaniard had a pipe burst/leak which flooded his electrics just after the start. Have sailed a bit on a Class 40 (sort of a mini Open 60) with water ballast and it's damn effective.

Do they need fuel to pump ballast or can they use the forward motion of the boat in some way to drive another pump?

😀 The guy is a star ! I am sure this is on a website somewhere

@will these boats buy the bow quite a bit, its a result of a design choice (reducing boyancy (size) in the bow). They all have these covered cockpits now as they know the amount of water on deck will be huge. You can see how much Boss buried the bow (and slowed down) on the footage, I shudder to think of the loads on everything inc rig when that happens

Here is some footage of a differemt sort of boat (symetrical spinnaker with higher center of effort - Figaro 2 ??) training, these Vendee boats are designed to avoid that

In the videos on the first page, the sailor was showing how he could move all the food ,stores and sleeping area from side to side for ballast.
He did say a tack would take a hour due to moving everything around, changing foils etc.

That explains a lot, thanks. That Boss boat looks incredible

Leffe yes they have pumps but tend to use gravity too on a tack, ie drop the water before they tack. The quantities of water are pretty large. Trying to pump that uphill after tacking would be very difficult. Water is heavy, 1m3 weights a mteric ton. Note the teams don't discuss the specific layouts, systems etc and generally will not allow photos of the insides of the boats.

Alex in fist place 🙂 made a better job of timing his gybe in my very humble and amateur opinion.

How did he get back in first? I thought he was still 30 behind?

edit:i misread 1m3 as 1.3m3. Slaps head

Are they carrying 3 months of fresh water as well? The more you look at this the crazier it gets

They carry water makers / desalination pumps.

And the water ballast can be used for drinking water as it's purified.. a safety measure ..

Food though, nah that's all there is.

I remember that days when the Ice Exclusion Zone wasn't in place, ohhh the days of the Whitbread ( Volvo ) Ocean Race hacking into the roaring 40's through the Ice fields.. I have a signed original painting of Maiden from Tracey hanging in my hallway with her and her crew onboard, and Amanda still makes bags at PigBags.. 😀

Great bits of video. The main move able mass is the keel, that water helps but I think is also about trim, rather than just pure righting moment

I'm still enjoying the game but the free version is showing its limits near the ice exclusion zone. Last night I went to bed think I had until 10:00 the next day to gybe. I got to the PC 3 hours early but was only 1 hour from being disqualified.

So tonight I'm sailing at a slightly less good angle to make sure i don't cross the line. But the aim is to learn and see if i still stick with it. I'll buy all they toys for the Volvo if I continue to enjoy it

@ampthill - you're still doing better than me 😕

I think I'm now about 300 miles behind - lets see how it goes!

My current tip for down wind sailing when the goal is make as much ground East as possible

Use something like a post card with a right angle to form a vertical line on the screen (I'm on a PC monitor). Adjust your heading to see which gives the greatest distance traveled East. Use the vertical edge to evaluate this. Check both gybes

From memory of dinghy sailing is that if the wind is continually changing direction we get a good tack (or gybe) and a bad tack. I think the rule is bad tack then good tack. I think that this is because it makes the good tack longer.

nickb KAPOOW SAILING? We both seem to be cutting through the fleet. To many people sailing straight down wind?

Always take the loss early in the manoeuvre, take the hit for the shortest time possible then tack/gybe.

Alex still slightly ahead at 15nm, but neither have gybed yet.

Ice exclusion. Indeed if you go back to the days of Ellen the footage going through the bergs was pretty scary

Vendee Live had Tanguy and Mark Turner (Volvo CEO / shoreteam mgr for Ellen) he said currently Boss has no significant disadvantage as we are not really in foiling conditions (those will come after Cape Horn ?) and he suggested Alex's strategy will be to push Armel faster than he may really want to go and hope he makes a mistake or breaks something. After all that time trying to convince people he is not crazy maybe now is the time he is trying to donthe opposite 🙂

Update from Alex with BP in sight

Alex seems to be going for a bit if a split, higher and faster than Armel ?

Japanese entrant dismasted, lost the top. 40-50 front people are juggling with. Mainsail damage on another boat. Alex seemed to lose a lot then gain most back.

Belting down towards the Kerguelen islands at 25.6kts (which seems as fast as it's possible to go according to the polars)....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
On the 3d view....why do the waves always seem against me?I wanna SURF 😀

Alex seems to be going for a bit of a split, higher and faster than Armel ?

Maybe it was a spliff not a split as he's 100 miles back now 😐

BP seems better placed to dive South too if that pays (kink in the ice exclusion zone)

Shorter distance in that bit of the zone, even if the winds slightly less it's worth dropping.

Seb Josse has bowled down a wave and hit the next one very badly and has backed off to inspect damage, another competitor has backed off too and heading for Cape Town..

These boys are hard as nails ... major keel damage, boat likely to sink and Kito is making a video and sending it !

Not looking good is it.

Keel off, 'significant ingress of water' 40 knot winds, 5-6m swells and asking to be rescued.

[url= http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16889/huge-concern-for-the-skipper-kito-de-pavant ]http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16889/huge-concern-for-the-skipper-kito-de-pavant[/url] http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16889/huge-concern-for-the-skipper-kito-de-pavant

“I hit something hard with the keel. It was a violent shock and the boat came to a standstill. The rear bearings of the keel were ripped off and the keel is hanging under the boat kept in place simply by the keel ram, which is in the process of cutting through the hull... The keel housing has been destroyed and there is a huge ingress of water there, but for the moment, it is limited to the engine compartment. I currently have forty knots of wind and 5-6m high waves. The boat is stopped. I brought down the mainsail so that she is heeling less. The situation has been stabilised for the moment. I have my survival kit alongside me. Someone is going to have to come and get me. I am trying to contact the Marion Dufresne to ask them to come here.”

[edit] Missed the update:

[url= http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16913/kito-de-pavant-aboard-the-marion-dufresne ]http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16913/kito-de-pavant-aboard-the-marion-dufresne[/url]

Zut alors.....

[s]Let's hope this ends well, he is about as far from outside help as you can get.[/s]

Amen for supply ships...

I remember the 1st gen Volvo 60's having the same issues with keels BITD, and IIRC there should be a lock mechanism to jam the keel in one position to stop it flapping around, clearly that's not working in this case.

Mike Golding turned around to pick up Alex in the 06' version of this race when Alex's keel fell off and inverted....

Crazy, but I love em' for it.

The rear bearings of the keel were ripped off and the keel is hanging under the boat kept in place simply by the keel ram,

It's a bit beyond a simple ram failure bb.

Yes, the early swinging keels had ram failures which allows the keel to continually swing and eventually destroy the keel box. They seem to have sorted the ram systems now.
This issue is seemingly that the keel has been ripped off the front bearing - it's now held on by the rear bearing and the ram which could fail at any time and then it's time for a swim 🙁

Scary stuff. He cant load it up by sailing closer to safety so he's just got to sit there and wait.
Sad that such an amazing boat will be allowed to die but then this isn't a round the cans race.

And...

Seb Josse has retired from the race, about 15mins ago the team announced his retirement but without a reason, yet.

Awe, more than a race of attrition, it's becoming a demolition derby.

😐

Historically attrition is about 50% I think

Seb twisted his Rudder stock or mechanism. He was due to replace it in daylight, with the spare he carried. I'm guessing that's not worked.

Just watched Alex's day 32 video:
http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16971/the-pacific-and-half-way-for-the-leaders

Excellent feeling to how rough it is, and like he says, how difficult it must be to cook, sleep or use the toilet.

Didac Costa says he has no roof on the cockpit, what's going on there?

That squeaking would've had me abandoning ship. Bloody mad the lot of them.

The Alex up date in the middle of the night shows just how tough this event is. The very real danger combined with isolation and sleep deprivation

With KAPOW on my tail and gaining all the time we continue to cut our way through the fleet

This is what I've learned. Must have been really dim not to have spotted it as we headed for the Cape of Good Hope

We are aiming to sail East. So as a rough rule of thumb winds with any Northley component (Wind bearing greater than 270) favour Port. Any Southerly wind (Wind bearing less than 270) favour starboard

Next problem. It looks likely that the wind will swing through 270, meaning I need to gybe, during my morning ride.....

With KAPOW on my tail and gaining all the time

Rorschach whats your boat called?

Mamasita.

Sometimes you've got to sail the 'wrong' tack or even at a worse VMG if it means getting to stronger breeze earlier.

I got that. What I hadn't got was If the wind is uniform every where what do I revert to

Mamasita

So about 3 hours ahead and 10,000 places. Its crowded out there. This is quite intresting

@Ampthill and @Rorschach - it's all a bit close isn't it! Every time I think I'm getting closer, you manage to eek out a few miles... I suspect catching you, let alone passing, will prove elusive. But I'm still trying!

Nick (Kapow)

It is great fun. I have to say it is ll made easier by passing others. That makes worry less about you catching me. Tonight looks awful. Looks like the wind swings through 270 between now and when I get up, ho hum its only a game....

Alex seems to be going for a bit if a split, higher and faster than Armel ?

That was 2 weeks ago and Armel had been in sight, Alex is now 500 miles back and Armel looks likely to catch the back of another depression in which case he will be gone. Sadly I think barring a breakage its all over as a race for 1st

Phew, a week away with no internet and I expected to come home to a boat languishing way back. Seem to have had a bit of luck with the weather.

'kin 'ell ... that must have been some collision

😯

I sacked it off....got fed up at looking at the laptop constantly.....

Sadly Thomas is limping to New Zealand, hoping his yacht doesn't break in half. Looking at the pics, it's only the backbone and keel box holding it together..

Probably hit a shipping container, it's the most logical reason for the damage. Container ships disguard them all the time, more so in the Southern Ocean since the boxes are rarely strapped down.

Shame Thomas didn't get a look at it, it'd have an ID/name on it and could be reported.

Thomas R nearly there, hugging coast of NZ

[img] [/img]

Sharkbait what happened? Away for a few days? Is that it no way back?

Eh, what have you seen???

Last night I forgot that I'd set a course that would put me into the exclusion zone - I meant to change course again a few hours later but forgot.
This morning I found my speed had been reduced massively while in the zone and I had to get back out. Lost about 100 miles which is annoying as I'd just made about 70 miles on the little group I'm near 🙁

Do you still have a place. I saw you over the line

What happens if you go over the line? May have done it for an hour or so a week ago

You just go really slowly.

OK stapleford flyer does still have a place, few

Yes but I've lost about 3000 places - got some work to do!

Armel smashes the record to Cape Horn by 5 days set 4 years ago. Pretty much perfect weather for his rounding. Alex T should round Christmas morning which despite trailing by 600+ miles will make it pretty special. As a race it's all over

Yup, once Alex dropped to 300 miles behind it was over for him. Ok, Armel could have a disaster but now they're hugging the Argie/ Brazilian coastline Armel can only put more miles on Alex.

Almost forgotten whose in third 😕

Alex now within 34 nm of the lead. In front by tomorrow?

Look at the wind and east/west separation, the distance to finish (and hence calculation of the lead) is misleading. I'd love to think Alex is "back in it" but I suspect not.

Why do you think that (genuine question, I'm interested in your reasoning)?

I get that Alex is downwind based on the current prevailing winds, but it's not like they're going to have Westerlys all the way home, and in fact if the winds stayed the same as they are at the moment it looks like a more Easterly course might pick up better winds.

But then I'm not an ocean sailor and haven't even been playing the game, so I might be missing something. Though in any case it's certainly looking a lot closer than seemed likely a few days ago.

Just the way the new wind will likely fill in. It's normal when you approach a lighter patch for the sailor behind to catch up, if Alex was directly behind Armel that would be one thing but there is a big East/West seperation. IMO Alex has taken a gamble knowing he will hold better wind to the East and why not as if he follows Armel he knows he's lost.

This is from Mark Turner who ran Ellen McArthur's operation (co-owened it I think), he's the new CEO of Volvo Ocean Race, lives in Switzerland and does quite a bit of road biking. Met him in Geneva airport once off loading his bike bag. You can follow him on facebook if you wish.

Armel v Alex reminds me in some ways (but not all) of Ellen coming back up to MichDesj from 600 or so miles behind in the 2000/1 Vendee. She took the lead for a few hours even up the Atlantic in very similar fashion, but there was not much doubt Mich would indeed get to the new wind first, if only just in the end. Seems like Armel should be safe further west once through the light patch, just like Mich was 16 years and 4 editions of the race ago (OMG, that long?!)...but I guess you never really can be sure...

I did post earlier before I had seen Mark's post but it's not a unique insight, wind always looked like it would fill in from the West imo

Well I'm not going to use the App again. Quick course tweak this morning on my phone. Came onto the PC an hour later and some how I was sailing south. I think thats the second time I've exited the app going the wrong way....

Only a few days until the leaders will be finished now....

Alex is only 95 nautical miles behind Armel at present. That's about 5 hours at the speed they're currently doing. Keep thinking there is no realistic chance of Alex winning, but then he closes the gap right down again.

The last bit in to the finish will have to be on port tack, so Alex will need to overtake and build up a lead before then if he's going to win. A very big ask!

Nail biter for sure... If onlyAlex hadn't broken a goil.....

NewRetro I am really not sure he's that much slower without the foil, the foil only helps in certain specifc conditions. 95 miles keeps the world interested but being mr grumpy he is only 5 hours behind only if Armel stops completely.

It's certainly been an incredible race

Alex "boat is on fire" 🙂 not literally of course

Gap down to 88 miles now...

It's crazy, but as I predicted.

Will Alex close the gap enough that they match race to the line ?? That would be something.

Come on Alex!
[url= http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/18129/alex-thomson-has-smashed-the-24-hour-record ]New 24hr distance record[/url]

What an impressive performance by both guys - but especially AT with a semi-broken boat for a huge amount of the race.
He may not win but chapeau chap (+ for the designers, builders, riggers, sailmakers, etc. - that boat looks simple awesome.)