Our Mate Alex Thomson’s Races
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I think that there's always an element of the unknown with structural loads on the IMOCAs. There have been a spate of keels falling off in recent years, and the foilers are at a bottom of a learning curve. Maybe Riou's decision to stick with a conventional design will prove to be smart.
If the boats get a sub seventy day circumnavigation, then that will be really impressive. Ellen MacArthur's record in 2005 was 71 days on board a larger trimaran. (For non-sailors, trimarans are faster than monohulls, and boat speed is proportional to length.)
Should be a good race to follow. I'm looking forward to seeing how the foilers go.
Incidentally, this was one of the spectators at the start, and described as James Bond's boat. It's pretty cool.
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Alex dropped down the rankings, but retook the lead overnight.
The boats are currently running down the Portuguese coast. Alex is the black trace, naturally, and the orange one to the west of him is JP Dick, who was in second at the time positions were reported.
As you can see, Alex took a bit of a flyer, as he sailed closer into the coast. The speculation over at Sailing Anarchy is that he took advantage of stronger breeze, particularly off the land, and the currents that run north to south.
What struck me is that most of the top French sailors, i.e. those in the pursuing pack, have come up through the Classe Figaro. This encourages boat-on-boat racing, and very rarely do they take risks in routing. Alex didn't, so he's chosen a course that he thinks is beneficial, rather than covering his rivals.
It's paid off, and I also wonder if the possible groupthink amongst the Figaristes might prove to be a weakness if Alex doesn't play the same game.
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What struck me is that most of the top French sailors, i.e. those in the pursuing pack, have come up through the Classe Figaro. This encourages boat-on-boat racing, and very rarely do they take risks in routing. Alex didn't….....
Alex seems to be more like a bold player. What a trick to pass through a passage between the western Cape Verde islands.
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As @Graeme said above, Alex does not have the "I have to cover my competition" mentality that some of the French sailors have. He took a different route that the other leaders earlier in the race and it did not pay off, but I am pleased to see that he is still prepared to follow his instincts, not follow the others….
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Fucking BOOM…..
Alex Thomson lead the eighth edition of the Vendee Globe solo non stop around the world race into the Southern Hemisphere when he crossed the Equator at 1905hrs UTC this Tuesday evening. The solo skipper of Hugo Boss sets a new reference time for the passage from Les Sables d'Olonne of 9 days 7 hours and 3 minutes. This betters the 2004 passage time of Jean Le Cam by 1 day and four hours.
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Tonight we went to the local pub that Alex's brother David runs. Alex phoned in from "just-having-smashed-another-world-record-and-now-somewhere-just-offshore-of-Brazil-but-definitely-still-in-first-feckin-place"…He sounds so amazingly relaxed and cracked some great jokes, he is at one with this race - amazing...
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As Alex said last night, 80 miles is nothing (it was 60 when he was chatting to us), that's just 3 hours fast sailing…...One of the reasons he is slowly creeping away is that his foils work at much slower speeds than the other foilers, indeed in some situations, the other foils do not work and the skipper may as well be sailing a conventional boat. Alex's foils work far better through a greater variety of wind speeds and wind angles....
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There's a bit of speculation on the Sailing Anarchy Vendée thread that:
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Alex is sailing at different angles because his boat is different to the French fleet.
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It's possible that Hugo Boss is heavily optimised for downwind sailing, as Alex has said in the past that's what he thinks the race is won on.
If the second point is true, things might tighten up on the leg back up the Atlantic.
Incidentally, if you think that the 60s are fast, Thomas Coville is currently attempting to break the solo round-the-world record on the trimaran Sodebo. He's had a good run down the Atlantic, and after 11 days is about 1,100 miles ahead of Joyon's reference time on IDEC. If he keeps up that margin, he could possibly break the fifty day barrier… :o
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Hugo Boss does not need to be heeled as far over as "the others" to get lift from the foils, he therefore gets lift in lighter winds than the others…..And yes, that means he will get more lift when he is sailing downwind than the others....
If you want to know more, come to the pub on a Wednesday night, there will always be some of the shore crew there to answer questions, and as long as Alex is not otherwise occupied (Gybing, tacking cleaning the diesel) then he will phone in and you can ask him anything you want. One thing about Alex, he does not hide stuff (well, actually he told me last Christmas that the boat was enormously fast and he was deliberately sailing it slowly in some of the precursor races, so as not to show his hand before the Vende...), he is really open so will answer almost anything....Including where his "adult films" are stored on the boats hard drive (under "taxes" if you want to know
). Yep someone asked him that question last night..... -
Unfortunately I'm at the wrong end of the country to make it to the pub on a Wednesday.
The Classe Ultime (French for big tris) seems to be picking up. There were a few new builds recently, and I guess that the next big event will be the Route du Rhum in 2018. If Alex is organised, he could have a boat together for that.
Here's an unofficial Vendée race tracker, which a lot of people prefer to the official one:
