Anyone doing the Vendee Globe?

 

The longest I've ever sailed singlehanded was across the channel which only took 14 hours. I remember how my emotions were definitely amplified with the isolation. Given how much more Vendee skippers are isolated, any frustrations we may have had during the game with the weather, routing etc must have been many times worse on the water. Not sure that I would have the right stuff for that.

 

It was also interesting how different strategies could be equally successful. I notice that I hunted around for the wind taking a lot more risks and consequently of the finishers so far, I've sailed the most miles of all of us, 28074. Even more surprisingly it gives me a higher average speed than the "with options" boats in our group. Dougal on the other hand sailed 27,554 and Bootscooter even less at 26527 miles. I think it was only a bit of luck that put me ahead of Dougal, as I actually thought he was being smarter (maybe in hindsight, I don't know) on the risk taking as I often had to put a lot of effort into making my risks work (the South American coast being one of them).

 

Anyway, I can say a learnt a lot from this, but maybe that is because I've never done any real ocean racing myself.

 

By all accounts from the real sailors to the virtual regatta ones, the South Atlantic has been really painful this year.

 

The Azores high has been surprisingly difficult to call as well. Bootscooter got hit the hardest going below it, but the overall winners found that was the quickest route - tis luck of the draw to some extent. Thankfully we're only doing this from our armchairs!