Vendee Globe 2004/2005 vendeeglobe.org - zur Übersicht THE DOLDRUMS: a few degrees north of the Equator, there is an area known technically as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). In very basic terms its where the North East Trade winds and the South East trade winds meet each other...effectively cancelling each other out as the result is air moving more vertically than horizontally – vertical air makes for a suction effect resulting in either no wind or often violent rain squalls. In the old days sailing ships might be stuck for weeks in the Doldrums...these days, it can be race losing or winning, but the light and powerful Open 60s can accelerate so quickly that they can use each squall to get themselves across relatively quickly – albeit with large amounts of sweat and frustration on the way... CONVERGENCE ZONE The water temperatures of the Southern Ocean are far from uniform. Around 60 degrees South, where the Southern ocean meets the warmer southward flowing waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, is the zone known as the Antarctic Convergence, or Polar Front. The total area of sea within the convergence makes up one tenth of all the world's oceans, and contains the coolest and densest water to be found anywhere. The effect of this is to create the area of most icebergs that break off the ice shelf. HOTTER ANGLE If you imagine running in the same direction and at the same speed as the wind, you would not feel any wind on you at all. The 'Apparent' Wind would be zero. If you are on a boat at that time, there would be no pressure on the sails and you would slow down. If at that time you headed left 30 degrees, you would start to feel apparent wind on you, and you would go faster. That is sailing a 'hotter angle', it's a choice between going where you want to go slowly, or heading up in to the wind and going faster! CONVERGENCE ZONE The water temperatures of the Southern Ocean are far from uniform. Around 60 degrees South, where the Southern ocean meets the warmer southward flowing waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, is the zone known as the Antarctic Convergence, or Polar Front. The total area of sea within the convergence makes up one tenth of all the world's oceans, and contains the coolest and densest water to be found anywhere. The effect of this is to create the area of most icebergs that break off the ice shelf. For more information, go to http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~kpt/terraquest/va/science/geography/geography.html UNDERSTANDING THE WEATHER MAPS: The weather maps show the isobars of atmospheric pressure, a (D) represents a Depression (low pressure system), and an (A) an Anticyclone (high pressure system). The small fleches indicate the wind strength and direction. The wind direction is from the end of the line with the fleche to the other end of the small line. The wind strength is 10 knots per full fleche (a half fleche therefore being 5 knots). The weather 'fronts' are indicated - blue for cold front, red for 'warm' front and purple for 'occluded' (when cold front has caught up and merged with warm front). In the southern hemisphere, the wind rotates in a clockwise direction around the Anticyclones, and anti-clockwise around the Depressions. The reverse of what happens in the northern hemisphere. Pitstops – what is alllowed in the rules? The boats may anchor or moor as close to land as they wish, but the skippers must not go ashore above the high water mark, and must receive no outside assistance, or physical contact with other people. The distance to finish measurement that the leaderboard is based on, is worked out on the basis of a theoretical course, the shortest possible within practical limits. Of course due to the wind and sea the boats can never steer this minimum distance, as they are always tacking, gybing or heading around weather systems to make the best speed towards the finish possible – rarely can they sail in a straight line. The theoretical course for the Vendee Globe is 23,700 miles, so Nick has just crossed that half way mark, but will probably still have 13 to 14,000 miles left to sail, rather than just the 11,850 theoretical ones. BUT he’s on the second half of the race, which is good for moral onboard! ‘Crash box’ – all the Open 60s have sacrificial bow sections so that if they hit something the first bit to break is a foam core half metre section that absorbs some of the shock. This bit can actually break off completely without damaging the structural integrity of the boat. The boats have at least 6 watertight compartments as well, so it takes a serious amount of damage to cause a major safety problem. Of course any damage is not good for performance, and a collision with an iceberg growler cannot do great things for the mental state of the skipper.... MRCC? The world’s oceans are divided in to a number of regions that are monitored and controled in terms of maritime safety by different countries and co-ordination centres. The fleet are passing between Austalian and New Zealand MRCCs at present. In the time of a crisis, it is the MRCC that manages all the rescue actions and recieves the emergency position signals. WIND WAND? Solo sailors spend most of the time with their boats on autopilots. These pilots are very sophisticated, taking inputs from gyro compasses and wind instruments at the top of the mast, making very fast calculations to try and respond to the changes in wind and waves and keep the 60 foot boats underneath their sails and the boats heading in the right direction! Its a hell of technical challenge with the boats surfing faster than the wind, down towering waves that can throw the boat on its side very quickly. The pilot is the skippers’ best friend, or worst enemy if its not working...Whilst the pilots can steer to a compass heading, these boats accelerate so easily, therefore creating a rapidly changing wind angle, that the boats cannot be pushed very hard using this basic mode. Instead they are set to steer to a constant true wind angle. The key input therefore is that of wind angle and wind speed. The ‘wands’ are the carbon fibre mini-masts that are fixed right at the top of the mast, with wind vane and anenometer fixed to them. ‘Voyage for Madmen’ - check it out on Amazon, a book that must be read about the Golden Globe, the forerunner to the Vendée Globe, and the first solo ‘race’ around the planet. ‘LAZYJACKS’ are the lines that a rigged on either side of the indexsail, between the boom and a point about one third up the mast. They are adjustable, and are used to hold the boom up off the deck and coachroof when the sail is not fully powered up (in which case the shape of the sail essentially holds the boom up on its own). Last night Nick had the indexsail all the way down, and when the boat was rolled the force of the water on the boom and stacked indexsail will have easily been enough to break them. In fact the jammer that they are secured with ripped off the boom rather than the lines breaking themselves, so Nick was able to temporarily re-tension the lazyjacks and secure the line on the winch at the mast. ‘STORM FORCE’ Beaufort Scale terms are often misused. The word ‘Storm’ and ‘Gale’ have actual definitions in terms of wind strengths in knots [nautical miles per hour]. Invented by Admiral Francis Beaufort in 1806, it was adopted by the Royal Navy from 1838 and reindexs largely unchanged ever since... BEAUFORT SCALE for the definitions! ‘RUDDER’ Obviously the bit that steers the boat, Open 60s have two of them – unusually for sailboats that normally have one. The reason is principally due to the very wide shape of these boats, when they are heeling, if there was only one central rudder it would come out of the water a considerable distance and so control would be lost. Secondly to help the autopilots, two rudders are used one on each side of the stern. When the boat is heeling the leeward rudder is completely in the water, and the windward rudder usually completely out – and reverses when you are the other tack. Therefore breaking one of these does not mean you have a second spare one, as you need both...some boats have kick up rudders which flip up under big loads, ie when they hit something, others have replacement rudders (usually only one due to the weight) on the boat – this is the case of Joe Seeten, but unfortunately he has already used his spare...fixing it is a complicated job, usually done in a composite workshop with time and materials on hand. ‘LIFT’ and ‘head’: When a sailor says the wind is ‘lifting’ it means it is moving further behind him, when it ‘heads’ him, the wind comes from a direction closer to the bow. When you are sailing with the wind from right behind, ‘downwind’, then a wind that heads can be helpful, as the boat goes faster on the same heading as the apparent wind increases. Downwind, ‘a ‘lift’ is bad news therefore due to less apparent wind. When you are sailing against the wind, ‘upwind’, a ‘header’ is bad news, forcing you to bear away and sail further from the course you want. And a ‘lift’ upwind is of course a bonus! ILES CROZET : The 20 small mountainous islands of Crozet are a French territory and are uninhabited except for scientific personnel and penguins. Home to seals, King Penguins and other birds, Crozet is designated a national conservation area by France. The mostly barren island is subject to low temperatures and long winters. The island climate is mitigated somewhat by maritime influences. The inland plateaus are barren and rocky. Steep cliffs drop to sealevel on the coasts. First landing was in 1772, with the first settlers, Sealers arriving in 1804. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A ‘GYBE’ AND ‘TACK’?: A gybe is when the boat’s stern (back end) is turned through the wind, so the wind passes from one side of the stern to the other. The indexsail bangs across as the wind catches the other side of the sail. A ‘tack’ is when the bow is passed through the wind, so it is more gentle and controllable as the sails flap from 30 degrees either side of the wind, the boat slows until the sails fill with the wind on the other side. When it is really windy, a ‘gybe’ can be a very difficult and dangerous manoeuvre, and so sometimes a skipper will instead decide to round up and trying and tack instead – the problem being the sudden increase in apparent wind as he turns in to the wind requiring a reduction in sail, and then less speed to manouevre. Not easy out there! JARGON BUSTER: NO ASSISTANCE, what does that rule mean? For Conrad it meant taking a mooring without using his engine, and tantilisingly close to ‘normal life’, but not permitted in any way to be helped by anyone, no items allowed to be received on board, no physical contact with the outside world. These are the tough rules of the Vendée Globe, no assistance means no assistance. GROWLERS: more dangerous in many ways than the giant icebergs that drift north from Antarctica, are the smaller chunks that break away from the index bergs. Even large icebergs are hard to see on radar as they are partly transparent, the small chunks you only ever see at the last minute...but they are hard enough and big enough to put a hole in a carbon fibre boat traveling at 15 knots towards it. The growlers often drift further north before melting away...a constant danger for the Vendée sailors regardless of the ice gates that have kept the fleet further north than in the past. MANDATORY WAYPOINTS: non-stop, solo, around the world...but a few marks to respect on the course, designed to keep the boats further north and minimise (impossible to eradicate) the risks of icebergs. The next waypoint for Nick is Heard Island, at 53 South, 72 East, which Nick must leave to to starboard, ie on his right hand side. After that, there are two more waypoints to the south west and south east of Australia. More wind doesn’t mean more speed... Nick’s average speed overnight was not far from the outright 24 hour record average, and he didn’t have more than 30 knots of wind for most of it. In 40 to 50 knots of wind in a big storm, like the leaders have been seeing recently, they are not going any faster. These Open 60 boats are so powerful, they don’t need much wind to get them going at max speed, and in fact as the wind continues to increase the rough seas force the skippers to throttle bag to try and help the autopilots keep the boats on their feet and avoid the big wipeout. Large breaking waves are the really dangerous part. Trying to stay on deck and hand steer the boats is virtually impossible for anything other than a few minutes, as Nick in just 30 knots has described this morning... WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN NICK GETS IN HIS FIRST SOUTHERN OCEAN DEPRESSION, A commentary from Roland Jourdain yesterday, already surfing crazily in 3rd place – "Winter sports have started...balancing act between wanting to go fast, and the hope to go in a straight line...big sea, last night was nice until the (cold) front, but since the wind went up to 50 knots...had a big wipeout...the wind then dropped a bit, but it was nightime, I stayed careful...this morning wind back up again. Fully crewed it would be fine, alone its hard. Wipeout was pretty bad, I was asleep, you feel it going...its too late...wiped out more than 90 degrees...you have to be a climber in the cockpit, and bit by bit get her sorted." GYBING – Nick is sailing dead downwind at present, ie the wind right behind him. When a boat sails with the wind it is very slow to sail directly with it – instead a raceboat will zig zag, doing the manouevre of a ‘gybe’, keeping the wind at 140 to 150 degrees true angle to the direction of travel. This way the boat will also create additional ‘apparent’ wind, and therefore the boat will go faster, and overall even though sailing further will make better speed towards the objective (known as VMG, Velocity Made Good). The ‘gybe’ itself, is the manoeuvre, often tricky and dangerous in high winds, of passing the sails from one side to the other as the wind pass through the stern from one quarter to the other. More on that one later! On the globe, lines of constant longitude ("meridians") extend from pole to pole, like the segment boundaries on a peeled orange. Every meridian must cross the equator. Since the equator is a circle, we can divide it--like any circle--into 360 degrees, and the longitude angle of a point is then the marked value of that division where its meridian meets the equator. What that value is depends of course on where we begin to count--on where zero longitude is. For historical reasons, the meridian passing the old Royal Astronomical Observatory in Greenwich, England, is the one chosen as zero longitude. HOW DO YOU SAIL FASTER THAN THE WIND!? With modern high performance sailing boats, the power to weight ratio is such that they are able to sail faster than the wind in many conditions – essentially they create so much apparent wind of their own (see previous Jargon Buster!), that they can easily attain speeds in excess of the true wind speed. Man has learnt a lot about how to harness the wind since the days of the Clipper Ships – which weren’t actually that slow though of course! Boats are becoming lighter and faster with each iteration of design and material advances. WEATHER DATA BACK FROM THE BOAT: the plan for a number of the boats was to communicate semi-real time data back for the public to follow their race...hourly position, speeds, and weather data. The race organisation made a new ruling just a couple of days before the start that meant we were only allowed to send the weather element back...which we are doing. How does it work? The data is collected by the onboard B&G instrument system, recorded on Deckman software (5 minute averages) running on a Sony VAIO, and then transmitted back to land via a small satellite unit called a Thrane & Thrane MiniC. The data is then fed automatically in to the Active24 hosted website...click on the button at http://www.nickmoloney.com and you are able to check on an hourly basis the actual weather Nick is experiencing, even if we can’t communicate his performance details. ENTERTAINMENT ONBOARD? As Nick mentions today, he does have the ability to watch DVDs via the Sony VIAO laptops that form the nerve centre of SKANDIA’s nav centre. He is also a Sony sound system, a few books and a lot of manuals if he really gets bored! He also has a bunch of DV tapes that his friends and team recorded for him before he left...the reality is though it is very rare in a 3 month round the world race that the conditions allow the skipper more than a 5 minute diversion from tactics, trimming, indextenance (body and boat), sail changes, weather, eating, sleeping... TRIMMING? Not only are there a load of sail combinations to choose from, once a sail is up there are a handful of small adjustments that can be made to the sail to optimise its performance. Via a number of control lines and cable tensions, the depth, fullness, shape, twist, flatness, angle to the wind can all be changed...each little change can have an important impact on the speed of the boat. And every tenth of a knot counts – 0.1 faster for 24 hours is 2.4 miles! In some conditions the skippers will be able to leave the trim set for several hours with the pilot steering to a wind angle, around this sail configuration. Other times will require constant trimming to keep the boat at maximum speed, even with the same sails set. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SPINNAKER AND A GENNAKER? When the wind is coming from between 100 degrees true (ie 100 degrees back from the bow, direction of travel) and dead behind, the Open 60s deploy sails known as either Spinnakers or Gennakers. The difference has become less obvious with developments in recent years of a number of different designs – but a spinnaker tends to be made from a nylon type material and is very full, used for when the wind is aft of 140 degrees, and a set of different sized and shaped (flatter and smaller area) gennakers for a wind further forward. Gennakers are usually made from stronger materials, and furl around their headstay (the cable that supports the front edge, known as the luff), rather than the spinnakers which are ‘snuffed’ with a sock that pulls down over them. Changing between these sails is a technical and often exhausting operation...with plenty of margin for error, as the skipper balances on the foredeck of his boat as it continues to surf down the waves... A CHINESE GYBE is the description sailors give to a particular spectacular, and potentially dangerous wipeout when the boat careers out of control and gybes by accident...the indexsail smacks across, but with the top part of the sail still on the previous gybe...complicated to show without a picture, but even more complicated to get out of! As the french say...bordelle...total mess! THE DOLDRUMS: a few degrees north of the Equator, there is an area known technically as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). In very basic terms its where the North East Trade winds and the South East trade winds meet each other...effectively canceling each other out as the result is air moving more vertically than horizontally – vertical air makes for a suction effect resulting in either no wind or often violent rain squalls. In the old days sailing ships might be stuck for weeks in the Doldrums...these days, it can be race losing or winning, but the light and powerful Open 60s can accelerate so quickly that they can use each squall to get themselves across relatively quickly – albeit with large amounts of sweat and frustration on the way... WATER BALLAST': 2 Vendée races ago (8 years) most of the boats in the fleet used water ballast systems to give them their full righting moment - ie the power generated by having weight to hold the boat upright as the wind pushes her over (from which, via the aerodynamic effects of the sails, comes boat speed - in basic terms!). Nowadays all new Open 60s use swing keels instead - the equivalent of having 30 people sitting up the windward side of the boat to keep her level! Water ballast is still carried by the newer yachts, but primarily for trimming the bow down when going upwind, and keeping the bow up when going downwind – plus a central ballast for adding extra power (via weight) when reaching. Swing keels are quicker to operate (push button hydraulics rather than pumping water around the boat), but carry a small disadvantage of generally being heavier boats, because unlike ballast boats, you can't empty the water/weight out when its light airs and you don’t need it... WIND MODE': modern autopilots, like the B&G ones on SKANDIA and many of the Vendée boats, can operate in three modes. COMPASS, APPARENT WIND, and TRUE WIND.That means the skipper sets the brains of the autopilot to steer to a fixed heading, a fixed 'apparent angle' to the wind, or a fixed 'true angle' to the wind. In wind mode, the boat will keep the heading at the same relative angle to the wind, hence the sails should stay filled properly and the boat at close to maximum speed EVEN if the wind changes direction. The downside if you are asleep is that if the wind changes direction a lot, the boat will carry on sailing very happily, but potentially in totally the wrong direction! This is what Mike Golding on ECOVER described last night as he awoke to find Bilou (SILL) had got away from him during a win. ‘hotter angle’: if you imagine running in the same direction and at the same speed as the wind, you would not feel any wind on you at all. The ‘Apparent’ Wind would be zero. If you are on a boat at that time, there would be no pressure on the sails and you would slow down. If at that time you headed left 30 degrees, you would start to feel apparent wind on you, and you would go faster. That is sailing a ‘hotter angle’, its a choice between going where you want to go slowly, or heading up in to the wind and going faster! FLIP UP RUDDERS, WHAT ARE THEY? Most of the newest generation Open 60s have flip-up rudders. All Open 60s have two rudders (due to their width the windward rudder is often out of the water), and the modern ones have configured them such that if they have a high speed collision a fuse breaks, the rudder comes up out of the water rather than being destroyed by the impact. A broken rudder could be race-ending. Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE