This was always going to be the risk for the foilers. There was a lot of talk about it before the race. Maybe the foilers have come too late and there is just too much rubbish in the ocean now. Le Cam said no way to foils.
To win first you must finish!
Dalin now saying he is having to slow the boat down. Something he has never had to do in his racing career. Knowing when to back off and preserve yourself and the boat is a valuable lesson.
One of the old skippers from the Whitbred said something like "I thought it was the Americas cup and pushed 100% all the time. The crew got tired and they all hate me. The boat fell apart. You just can't do that on these long ocean races. I didn't take my foot of the pedal and it cost us. Slowing down just wasn't in my mind. Next time it will be".

This is a real nightmare obviously. Of course the question now is - the elephant in the room - how many if any are going to finish the race without being knocked out by smashing into a UFO. How many more miracle rescues will be needed - Le Cam's effort was unbelievable - the bloke is 61 for cripes sake and his experience really told then - but that result can't be guaranteed going forward obviously. So the race is only into a small fraction of the course and a significant fraction of the fleet has been damaged? The surveillance and control systems on these things need forward scanning radars or lidars or something so that UFOs in the course path are identified and then the yachts manoeuvre around them. Of course the solution is clean oceans but with 1900 more containers just lost as per recent post this is not going to happen overnight. Discuss. It would be prudent for the race organisers to make some sort of comment on this right now - of course I am not inferring race organisers are at fault - but with this sort of carnage so early in the race it would be expected that they could advise the fleet of any possible mitigation measures to try and avoid hitting a UFO - I cannot think of one at the moment though.

damn aliens spoiling it for everyone

you have to wonder how many floating objects are sunfish every time i head south into cold water i see heaps of them< smacking a ton of fish at 20 + knots the loads would be astronomical as previous s to h boats have found out

Speed and fragility makes damage inevitable. If they take a leaf out of F1 racing, they would ban foils, and make some kind of underwater fence mandatory. The "Halo" did it for F1.
Lets leave foils for short inshore racing.

they look cool but racing and breaking mean not winning and they will either make them better or will die their own natural death
so far removed from reality who would want to go cruising with the missus worried about the bow snapping off

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boty said..
you have to wonder how many floating objects are sunfish every time i head south into cold water i see heaps of them< smacking a ton of fish at 20 + knots the loads would be astronomical as previous s to h boats have found out

I always thought the ol', "we hit a sunfish", was code for we skimped on materials to save weight to try to go faster at the expense of a hull strength in the S2H, but if you've seen heaps, I'm probably wrong with that one

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r13 said..
This is a real nightmare obviously. Of course the question now is - the elephant in the room - how many if any are going to finish the race without being knocked out by smashing into a UFO. How many more miracle rescues will be needed - Le Cam's effort was unbelievable - the bloke is 61 for cripes sake and his experience really told then - but that result can't be guaranteed going forward obviously. So the race is only into a small fraction of the course and a significant fraction of the fleet has been damaged? The surveillance and control systems on these things need forward scanning radars or lidars or something so that UFOs in the course path are identified and then the yachts manoeuvre around them. Of course the solution is clean oceans but with 1900 more containers just lost as per recent post this is not going to happen overnight. Discuss. It would be prudent for the race organisers to make some sort of comment on this right now - of course I am not inferring race organisers are at fault - but with this sort of carnage so early in the race it would be expected that they could advise the fleet of any possible mitigation measures to try and avoid hitting a UFO - I cannot think of one at the moment though.

www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/19951/imoca-technology-advances-will-help-lower-the-vendee-globe-record

If you read this article they talk about some of the boats having 3 cameras at the top of the rig. Looking forward. I am pretty sure Alex had forward sonar fitted in his keel.
I guess the reality is it doesn't work too well in 30 knots of breeze and 4 m waves. When the boats are doing 20+ knots.
Another article.
www.sail-world.com/news/232861/OSCAR-helps-prevent-costly-Vendee-Globe-collisions

Ok great thanks for advising of these sonar and OSCAR systems which is what I would envisage is needed as mandatory. But as you say in 30kts wind, 4m waves and 20+ knots boat speed the effectiveness might be reduced. So we touch wood and have fingers crossed for all yachts still in the race, and trust that the data from the damage incidents which have occurred to date will be fully assessed and fed back to the designers of these systems to improve them. Can they be made to be completely fail safe going forward? Got to be a really tough task for sure - there are huge differences between yachts and F1 cars and the terrain they plow through.

Its more like the Paris Dakar than F1 I think.
For the moment the foils are designed to fail before ripping the side of the boat out.
It looks like they are putting a group of people together to do some interviews this weekend. Engineers, boat builders etc.
I think the foils are amazing and there are discussions for and against. The Imocas have developed so much in the last 5 years.

www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2020/12/03/vendee-globe-heartbreak-at-40-south/

Le Cam gets hit by a flying fish! Because he was having problems with his auto pilot he helmed for 10 hrs last night!!!
www.20minutes.fr/sport/2925135-20201205-vendee-globe-vilaine-plaie-visage-jean-cam-apres-attaque-poisson-volant-si-si

What a race so far!

Alex must be shattered after 16 years and 5 races worth of attempts to win the vendee globe. I really thought this might be the year for him. I suppose he has 4 years to make Hugo Boss the toughest and fastest boat racing.

Across all the editions of the race, just 53% have managed to finish. Interesting read here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vend%C3%A9e_Globe

Across all the editions of the race, just 53% have managed to finish. Interesting read here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vend%C3%A9e_Globe

this years race is next level since the boats have gone extreme foiling.
Previous generations look slow in comparison.


My youtube feed mixed in some old vids, one was from 2016/2017 ?, and shows one of the racers boat hitting a whale.
The go pro mounted under the dodger showed it best, sailing along at 16-20 knots, then thump, the whole boat impacts and the go pro shudders on its mount. The stern view then captures the stunned whale coming up, probably just wondering in what happend.
Sorry for not digging the link up

The impact warning sensors fitted are a great innovation, but I think from watching that video youd know once a whale has been hit.

They have put together a jury and are figuring out what compensation to give the boats that diverted to help Kevin. They are waiting for weather experts and routers to do simulations of where the boats were when they diverted to the time Le Cam dropped of Kevin. 6 days! It will be more likely the time Le Cam picked him up to the time he got back on course.
Once this is done they will give each boat a time compensation. They say it will take a couple of days to figure out and come up with a decision.
It's still a long way to go but the article said the first boat across the line may not be the winning boat!!!

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tarquin1 said..
They have put together a jury and are figuring out what compensation to give the boats that diverted to help Kevin. They are waiting for weather experts and routers to do simulations of where the boats were when they diverted to the time Le Cam dropped of Kevin. 6 days! It will be more likely the time Le Cam picked him up to the time he got back on course.
Once this is done they will give each boat a time compensation. They say it will take a couple of days to figure out and come up with a decision.
It's still a long way to go but the article said the first boat across the line may not be the winning boat!!!

That must be a complex calculation!

plus the food restocking request.

Fresh bread rolls, apparently in the interviews he likes a bit of fine dining aboard.
I think thats fair enough though.

I do feel sorry for Alex. and Hugo Boss team.
He grew on me more during the interviews. I hope there is a next year for them.

Here's a young guy talking through design choices on the Imoca's, some interesting observations, and a hilarious rant about stack packs.

He is very short on knowledge, very big on ego. The guys who sail and create these boats are very good and have eons of combined experience. It's extremely arrogant for a noob sailor to put themself on s pedestal and tell them why he is a genius and they are morons

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Chris 249 said..
He is very short on knowledge, very big on ego. The guys who sail and create these boats are very good and have eons of combined experience. It's extremely arrogant for a noob sailor to put themself on s pedestal and tell them why he is a genius and they are morons

I know, he's a youngster.... Pretty funny still.

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Chris 249 said..
He is very short on knowledge, very big on ego. The guys who sail and create these boats are very good and have eons of combined experience. It's extremely arrogant for a noob sailor to put themself on s pedestal and tell them why he is a genius and they are morons

I know, he's a youngster.... Pretty funny still.

I didn't think he was that bad.
just because he's young doesnt mean he's arrogant for having an opinion, and why would you have a stupid boom bag flapping around on a racing yacht?

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stray said..
I didn't think he was that bad.
just because he's young doesnt mean he's arrogant for having an opinion, and why would you have a stupid boom bag flapping around on a racing yacht?

He's not arrogant because he's young. He's arrogance because he believes he's so vastly smarter than the designers who have been working on racing yachts for 35 years and are at the top of the field, and also smarter than the sailors.

As far as the sailbag goes, how often have you dropped or reefed an Open 60 main by yourself in the Southern Ocean? What does your CFD programme say about the effect on airflow? If you have no relevant experience or have done no relevant studies then why assume that you are right and all the people with that experience are complete fools?

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Chris 249 said..

stray said..
I didn't think he was that bad.
just because he's young doesnt mean he's arrogant for having an opinion, and why would you have a stupid boom bag flapping around on a racing yacht?

He's not arrogant because he's young. He's arrogance because he believes he's so vastly smarter than the designers who have been working on racing yachts for 35 years and are at the top of the field, and also smarter than the sailors.

As far as the sailbag goes, how often have you dropped or reefed an Open 60 main by yourself in the Southern Ocean? What does your CFD programme say about the effect on airflow? If you have no relevant experience or have done no relevant studies then why assume that you are right and all the people with that experience are complete fools?

Anyone can see that a bag flogging around for the whole length of the boom is causing drag.
Why would you design and build a top end racing yacht and still use a flappy thing to control the loose sail when reefed.

Yes, anyone can see it. So either (1) the designers like VPLP and the sailors are the stupidest people in the world: or (2) there's a good reason why they use them despite the drag.

Have you reefed a main singlehanded at night, after sailing a month? Have you designed an Open 60 sail? Have you ever gone onboard the short handed pro
boats and asked the sailors why they do the things they do? Did the self appointed YouTube expert do any of those? If not, why assume that the shorthanded sailmakers, gear makers, sailors and designers are all complete morons who know f@ck all and know even less than people who have never sailed on or worked on such boats?

Which is more logical; that people on the sidelines know more than the pros, or that the pros know more than the noobs?

The recent Vendee attrition rate suggests the Pro's aren't the final word in current design or one design rules. So maybe he is an angry young upstart, but innovation comes from people thinking outside the box. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some of his ideas appear in Vendee 2024.

Oh, and I'd guess that the bag is very efficient. When you reef a main, the reefed section (bunt) often flogs a lot. Flogging breaks down cloth and causes drag. The normal cure is to rig buntlines- which require holes in the sail. These holes require reinforcement and may be fatigue points. Even worse, to put them in on a boat like a 60 requires you to climb out on the end of the boom, often in gale force conditions and on top of the flogging bunt. Try doing that alone at night near icebergs!

Tightening the buntlines often causes the line to chafe over the cloth, and causes sharp creases under pressure. So now there is a lot of extra risk and wear on the main. The bunt can also fill
with water, which is problematic.

And of course having struggled to reef, then put on wet weather gear and climbed onto the boom
and slid out to its end, hanging on with one hand while your other folds the bunt, finds the cringle, pulls the buntline through and then moving to the next one; about 10 times, often with gloves to protect you from sub zero temps and spray; one will then have to do
much of it in reverse to un-reef. And all
this time the bunts are causing drag

Now compare that to the efficiency of reefing from shelter with a stack pack, and then tell us all that you are right and that the guys who actually build and sail these boats are morons......

Yes i've reefed a main on my own at night many times and personally i would just have lazyjacks without a boom bag.
maybe my simpleton thinking is off but i would think these design experts could come up with something better than 10 sq metres of loose cloth each side of the boom to control loose sail when reefed.
Maybe split the bottom 4' of each lazyjack into 2 lines to hold the loose sail better.
Can anyone else think of something other than a boom bag?
Dont just sit back and say thats what they do so it must be the best way. The boat with an aerodynamic boom and sail catchment system could just have the winning edge in the next race.