Another Day in the VendeeGlobe - Another Casualty

No, this is not an error from me, the blogger, but a last report on the VendeeGlove Sailing Race. 

Samantha o/b Saveol is reported to have lost her mast in stormy winds just North of Madeira. I feel sorry for her, the only woman in the fleet and a finisher in the last 2008 Vendee. 

archive photo: Saveol and Samantha in better times

Now the VendeeGlobe Sailing fleet is back to 16 boats, while one boat is desperately trying to sail back to base for emergency repairsl; when that would be he can re-start the Sailing Race till 20th November 13:02 local time. 

Javier Sansó o/b  Acciona 100% Eco Powered  saw his mainsail coming down after the track on the hallyard broke. Now he has to wait for calmer conditions to climb the mast for inspection and lets hope he is able to repair and continue. 
    
The lead is still with MACIF, but the followers have reduced the advance to a handful of miles. The fleet is compacting in the front on approaching the Cape Verde islands. 

That not only some of the real skippers have problems, but all of the 200,000+ virtual sailors in VirtualRegatta (VR) had some 4 hrs outage of the server on Wednesday evening (CET) and could not control their boats. Apparently VR is struggling with the large number of virtual skippers, as the Forum is now taken out and the chat is not  working. The game, however, has returned and allowing the boats to sail on. 

Another day in the VendeeGlobe - Another casualty

The leaders of the VendeeGlobe have sailed through the ridge of High Pressure and not sailing fast in Southerly directions in  strong winds. François Gabart on MACIF is still leader in the fleet with about 50Nm. He also has sailed into stronger winds so his clever startegy has worked out for him and he has a good chance to stay in the lead somewhat longer. 

Day 5 highlights - Wednesday, November 14, 2012 by VendeeGlobeTV

Earlier in the day, Louis Burton o/b Bureau Vallée, reported a collision with a fishing-boat while taking a nap, about 400Nm west of Lisbon. He broke his shroud on Port side and considers a repair required. Trying to reach Les Sable d'Olonne for a repair. If he would succeed before 20th November at 13:02 hrs he will be able to restart!

The West or the South?

The big question for the sailors at the moment is, to sail more to the West or keep sailing South along the African Coast as long the winds are favorable there?
Some Boats to the West have lost some miles over the last day, as the wind strength is less. However the winds along the African coast will weakening as well in roughly a day; what to do?

A 2nd Boat has to abandon the VG race with heavy damage to the bow. Groupe Bel, skippered by Kito, collided with a fishing boat, while Kito was taking a short nap. He could save the rigging, but the bow is so heavy damaged to continuing and even a quick repair is not an option. 

Groupe Bel  collided with a fishing boat and out off the VendeeGlobe Race

The Race continues with 18 boats and lets hope that the rate of boats dropping out of the race is lowering else in 3 weeks the race is over.

The virtual sailors in VR are going well. The site mentions over 200,000 boats registered, but that is also giving some problems, like the Forum is out for more then a week now and now also the chat is out; so not communication anymore. 

VendeeGlobe Sailing Race started

The 2012 edition of the VendeeGlobe Sailing Race has started. 

The start of the Real Boats could be viewed some TV stations (France, Europe?) but also on Internet on the Vendee website. 
This is a good coverage, expected in this time. 

There were some 3 boats which caused an early start and had to do some penalty. Sad to say that shortly after the Start already 2 Boats suffered problems , large enough to return to base for repairs; now  19 hours later I still see both Boats sitting in the harbour on the Race tracker.

If you like to follow the boats than a visit to the VendeeGlobe website will give you a link to the Race Tracker, or just check my blog in the TAB: "ROUTE"

Alongside the real boats a large number of Virtual Boats have started the VendeeGlobe, some 180,000 registered boats. 
To follow the same you may look at my TAB:  "ROUTE"
where I show a Map with a daily progress location for the leader in the VendeeGlobe, my virtual boat in VR and my virtual boat in LS. 
LiveSkipper another modern virtual sailing game, has organised a Sail the Globe Sailing race with a slightly different route, however.