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2020 Vendee Globe starts Nov. 8

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zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1297 Posts

Initially Posted - 11/06/2020 : 15:34:45

Vend�e Globe

(CC from the website)

To date, the Vend�e Globe is the greatest sailing race round the world, solo, non-stop and without assistance. The event followed in the wake of the Golden Globe which had initiated the first circumnavigation of this type via the three capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn) in 1968. The eight editions of what is now called the Everest of the seas by the public have enabled 167 contenders to take the start of this extraordinary race.

44 996.2 kilometers, 24 296 miles: that is the circumference of the Earth and the distance of reference around the world. A revolution accomplished in 74 days and 3 hours during the last edition of the Vend�e Globe. This planetary voyage is firstly a climatic journey to sail down the Atlantic, cross the Indian and Pacific oceans, then sail back up the Atlantic... To be expected: a start from les Sables d'Olonne in mid-autumn, a trip in the heart of the Southern seas in full austral summer and a wintery return to Vend�e.

In reality, during the previous eight editions of the Vend�e Globe, most competitors sometimes sailed over 28 000 miles (about 52 000 kilometers). The solo racers have to deal with the wind, waves, swell and ice. The trajectories of the boats are thus a chain of broken lines, zigzags, detours and changes in courses.
A climatic trio

The Vend�e Globe solo racers must permanently tamper with the weather systems. These are made of anticyclones - rather stable and moderately windy high pressure zones � and depressions, usually generating strong winds. This confrontation between high and low pressures determines the strategy to adopt in each zone of the course of the Vend�e Globe. The North-South trajectory to go down the Atlantic and the South-North way back up are perpendicular to the general movement of perturbations whereas crossing the Indian and Pacific in the Southern seas is done in the same direction as the weather systems.

During the first phase between Les Sables d'Olonne and the cape of Good Hope, at the tip of South Africa, solo racers must sail along the anticyclone of the A�ores in the North Atlantic, followed by its equivalent of Saint Helen in the austral part. The game consists in finding the good balance : far enough from low pressure centers to avoid the strongest winds without getting stuck in the high pressures. The second phase consists in taking advantage of the weather phenomena coming from the West so as to be pushed rapidly between Good Hope and the Horn. The third phase looks like the first one with the anticyclones of Saint Helen and of the A�ores to be avoided. It's also necessary to manage the passing from one hemisphere to the other : it's the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), commonly called the Doldrums. At this place, hot and humid air masses brought by trade winds of the two hemispheres meet and generate unstable air where white calm and stormy squalls alternate without any logic. Vigilance and intuition are indispensable to escape this trap.
Atlantic parts

On 8thNovember 2020, starting day, two situations are possible : if the anticyclone of the A�ores stretches out to the West of Europe, getting out of the Gulf of Biscay will take place in manageable conditions. On the contrary, Atlantic depressions which rush in between Newfoundland and Spain could generate strong and adverse winds. This beginning of race between LesSables d'Olonne and the tip of Finist�re could be achieved very quickly in one short day or prove to be a difficult start... Once past the Portuguese coasts, the fleet will slide toward the Cape Verde : contenders must be careful not to endure perturbations off the islands (Madeira, Canarias, Cape Verde), nor take the risk of being trapped in the calm of the anticyclone of the A�ores... This critical moment actually impacts the future point of entry in the Doldrums, generally between the 27� and 30� West parallel. The point of entry also determines the point of exit : North-Easterly winds turn to South-Easterly ones on the other side of the ecuator ! The closer the trajectory to Africa, the shorter the route to go around the anticyclone of Saint Helen...

The high pressures of the South Atlantic are fickle at the end of the austral spring : the goal of the solo racers is thus to sail along the Brazilian coasts as offshore as possible and catch one of the depressions which appear in the bay of Rio and die in the Indian ocean! If the high pressure system breaks up into ephemeral and mobile cells, the fleet ends up scattered in small groups with very different weather conditions : the split is often critical...
Catching the train in the Great South

In less than a month, the frost of Vend�e makes way for equatorial heats, tropical rainshowers and then subantartic polar cold. The Southern seas, which represent almost 3/5th of a round-the-world, offer a chain of depressions originating from Brazil, Madagascar, New Zealand� Solo racers must preserve this train of downwind conditions, sliding from one perturbation to another without being absorbed by anticyclonic tentacles. Powerful North-Westerly winds, fronts with violent Westerly squalls, switchover to South-Westerly freeze, the sequence is very trying for the sailors as well as the machines..

To limit the risk of encounters with icebergs, the Race Direction establishes a zone prohibited to sailing, the Antartic Exclusion Zone (AEZ), which goes around the Antartic between the 45�S on the Crozet Islands side and the 68�S off Cape Horn. Consequently, this demarcation for safety imposes a rather Northerly trajectory which flirts with the anticyclone of the Mascareignes (Indian) and Easter Island (Pacific). Competitors can get caught in high pressure systems while their opponents are surfing on a depression !
The long way home

If rounding Cape Horn after 50 days at sea reduces drastically the stress of breakage and marks the increase in temperatures, the 7 000 miles left to sail to reach the Sables d'Olonne aren't the simplest ones, especially if other competitors are right behind you! Once you've passed Patagonia, there is still the anticyclone of Saint Helen to avoid while negotiating stormy depressions coming from Brasil. Adverse and irregular breezes, important wind shifts, fronts to cross, far from being an easy ride...

Once the Brazilian coasts are more or less within sight, the Doldrums loom at the horizon before reaching the trade winds of the North hemisphere. Once again, racers must avoid getting trapped in the fearsome calm of the anticyclone of the A�ores in order to finally reach the Atlantic depressions which can be more devastating than their austral equivalentsin January... After 70 to 75 days at sea, the winner of the Vend�e Globe 2020 will finally be able to see the Nouch buoy which marks the finish line of the Vend�e Globe in Les Sables d'Olonne.

https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en

Henk & Johanna
"Floating", a few off your "barnacles".
"Someday Lady" '95 C250WB #151 ('03 - 2016)
"Sea ya" 30ft Bayliner (04-2018 - 09-2018)
"Mariah" '96 C250WB #191 (05-2019 - 15-05-2023)
"Lady J" '00 C250WK #499 (05-2021 - 09-2022)

Edited by - zeil on 11/06/2020 15:36:53

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 11/07/2020 : 08:36:08

Henk,
This is a great write up about the event. I see the link. For Europeans, it appears that the start of the race is scheduled for mid-day in France, with all the pre-race drama and stories taking place in the morning before leading up to the starting gun. That�s 0600ET and 0300PT on Sunday in North America. I hope they decide to provide VOD highlights for us here afterwards.
Thanks for making me aware, my wife Cathy and I followed the last race. We plan on doing the same this time.

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1297 Posts

Response Posted - 11/07/2020 : 12:32:28

Bruce and Cathy

Detwoofus (the two of us) are very much looking forward to the race of 33 skippers of which 6 are women.

During previous races female skippers added many highlights, comments and an entire new dimension to the emotional hardships they must endure

By the way, the author Jules Verne wasn't far off the mark by writing his book in approx. 1873 titled "Around the world in 80 days",

Edited by - zeil on 11/07/2020 12:45:54

Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5231 Posts

Response Posted - 11/08/2020 : 18:47:30

Cathy and I watched the pre-race events and the start this morning via the website and YouTube. The color was great, for example Sam (Samantha) an Englishwoman was competing against her partner/companion from France. The commentator gave me a chuckle when he said �she speaks French with an English accent�.
The boats are beautiful and well-outfitted. They seem very light with minimum displacement, and so probably get up on plane easily on the big seas in the Southern Ocean. We shall see how they make out in the next three months.

Bruce Ross
Passage ~ SR-FK ~ C25 #5032

Port Captain � Milford, CT

glivs
Admiral

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USA
822 Posts

Response Posted - 11/09/2020 : 05:28:24

The Vend�e Globe is an amazing race but the launch of the fourth GPS III satellite last Thursday was astounding GPS III

Gerry & Leslie; Malletts Bay, VT
"Great Escape" 1989 C-25 SR/WK #5972

zeil
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
1297 Posts

Response Posted - 11/09/2020 : 11:19:27

A provided website projects up-to-the-minute tracking of the actual fleet complete with leaders, weather forecast, theoretical route and more...

https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/tracking-map

For those that are interested, on the hard, snowed-in or otherwise it includes free access to play Virtual Regatta

Edited by - zeil on 11/09/2020 11:26:29

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