Archive for November, 2008
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Day 17Nov 25th, 2008
by tim -
Best news of the day!!
Jonny has just reported that he has got the Fleet 77 working again, which means that he can access all the weather data, and be able to send us pictures and video. He’s obviously going to be very relieved, and can now get on with sailing the boat at its full potential. Maybe a chicken dhansak as a treat for supper tonight, and an extra Mars Bar!!
Take care, JonnyDay 17Nov 25th, 2008
by Yachtmaddie -
The Fine Line Between Sport & Lunacy
We’ve come across a quite extraordinary piece of film, shot on one of the boats taking part in the Volvo Ocean Race. It’s shot aboard a boat called Kosatka (Team Russia) in the Southern Ocean, which the Vendee fleet are rapidly approaching (though not rapidly enough, I’m certain most would add).
It’s about 4 minutes worth of film. Split into two. The first 3/4 shows what I believe is known as a Chinese gybe (which, as you’ll see, seems to refer to a gybe that doesn’t go especially well). The guys on deck seem fairly calm (”please pass me a knife”) amidst the mayhem. The last 45 seconds provides breathtaking footage of this boat at what likes near pelt. Staggering, awe-inspiring images that give just a flavour of how differently wired these people must be to go and do that. Voluntarily.
The fact that the Vendee skippers are doing this alone adds a completely new dimension.
Stay safe, all those heading towards, or currently in, the Southern Ocean.
Now, back to my extra large latte and New York Times .
(Thanks to Rosemary Nunn for sending this through)
Day 17Nov 25th, 2008
by Ben Malbon -
South Atlantic Day 16
Jonny crossed the equator at 1900 GMT last night, just as the Archers was starting. Is this significant? Once over the line the breeze picked up and steadied and hopefully this will mean a one-tack haul for a few hundred miles. It sound s very hot and sticky out there, and as it’s humid as well it’s probably very uncomfortable.
Jonny is obviously concerned about the state of his Fleet 77 Satcom and the effect it might have on him if he is unable to fix it. The system brings him all the weather data, and allows him to send back video and pictures; but it is the potential loss of weather forecast data in the Southern Ocean that is of greatest concern. It’s a difficult enough environment in any case without the problems of not knowing where the next blow is coming from, and which way to go to best avoid the pounding. Fingers crossed!
He’s in good spirits and will feel even better when he can get into a good wind and demonstrate what the boat can do. He has a few other boats in his sights.
The special freeze dried meals that a few of the Brits had made for them have been a great success. Jonny has been praising them and consuming the strangest things for breakfast; green thai curry before 0800m is not the obvious choice, but it seems to fit the bill!
We are hoping to see some more developments over the next few days as the winds steady and the temperatures drop from roasting to only tropical. Best of luck Jonny - keep at it!
Day 17Nov 25th, 2008
by Yachtmaddie -
Day 16 round-up. Blogs and other flotsam.
We haven’t posted much of the round-up stuff for a while, so apologies for that. The blog kind of moved into the Doldrums a bit itself when baby Felix came aboard. But I’ve been saving these up:
Great backgrounder to Vendee Globe with lots of pics
World Cultural Pictorial blog seem to have cobbled this post together from a NYTimes article and Wikipedia - but it’s packed with images and it’s a great post and neatly explains the background to the race and this year’s British entrants.
Want to know more about the IMOCA Open 60 race class boats?
Look no further than their official site - and start with this video of a roll-test.
Social results forecasting service My Prognosis covers Vendee Globe
This is some weird social media sh*t: a French start-up called My Pronostics that’s a bit like an online prediction market mixed with Digg and a reputation system. The service claims to be providing somewhat qualified crowd-sourced forecasts for a whole range of sporting events - including the Vendee Globe. I asked Jonny’s girlfriend Blandine if she could translate the page below:
Translation:
Since it was created in 1989, the Vendee Globe Challenge has always been the most important sailing event in France. The Vendée Globe is a round-the-world single-handed yacht race, sailed non-stop and without assistance on a monohull.
Therefore it is easy to understand that this competition can only be for the best sailors in the world – Titouan Lamazou in the first edition, Christophe Auguin in 1997 and Michel Desjoyaux in 2001.
In the last 2004/05 edition, Vincent Riou finished in first position only a few hours ahead of Jean Le Cam. Both of them are still competing in this great adventure with 28 other extremely motivated and experienced skippers.
Who will finish in pole position for this sixth edition of the Vendee Globe after a little less than three months at sea alone? You can give your prognostic here!
My Virtual Vendee Globe game is way off course
I signed up on the 9 November and have never been back. My boat, however, has carried on and I received this comment from another competitor inside this virtual game:
Was trying to socialize during my vandée globe virtual regatta, but you are between Greenland and Canada rating 105 000 someyhing behind the leader…
Good luck Amundsen!!!
Oops..
Sailing from the LOUD3R network
The LOUD3R network has launched a sailing network called SPINNAK3R and they’re covering the Vendee Globe as a Hot Topic. It works like this:
LOUD3R sites are created by assembling a source list of websites and a semantic glossary of terms that teach the content engine how to identify the best news stories, photos, videos, and other content from hundreds of Websites related to a particular topic. We use a combination of human editorial input combined with semantic software to assemble all the best content, from a web-wide perspective, for any given topic. The technology learns from user behavior, allowing the site to react to the community’s interests and preferences. We sift through the bad, so you don’t have to.
In other words, it’s an aggregator with some editors. Definitely worth a look.
Jonny in Yachting Monthly 21 Nov
Click the image to link to the site.
Yachting World week 2 roundup
Click the image to link to the site.
Independent newspaper article 20 November
The Indie provides parallel coverage of The Volvo and The Vendee. Click the image to link to the article.
10 reasons why the Vendee is beter than the Volvo from Captain JP’s blog
And they are:
1. Its a single handed epic adventure, non stop around the world
2. You get to know key sailors as individuals, rather than merged together as a crew
3. The competition includes both men and women (see above)
4. The Open 60 class is the standard for offshore racing
5. It sticks to the traditional route each time
6. It dives into deep southern ocean, iceberg territory like true global races should
7. It’s got a better race tracker - in particular it shows wind forecasts. In my mind the Volvo made a big mistake by not continuing the Virtual Spectator from last time. More positive comments about their web site from Adam here.
8. It’s got a bigger fleet
9. The competitors get to try out their sexy French accents
10. Er… running out of ideas - any suggestions for a 10th reason?
…And finally, some video from inside Vincent Riou’s PRB via YachtPals
Day 16Nov 24th, 2008
by tim -
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Day 16Nov 24th, 2008
by tim -
Sir Robin Knox Johnston on the Vendee Globe
Found this on Vimeo. Hadn’t seen it before - interviews with Jonny and Sir Robin and a bit more of a tour of the boat.
The Vendee Globe 08 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston from Artemis Ocean Racing on Vimeo.Day 16Nov 24th, 2008
by tim -
Cowes TV video
This video was posted a couple of days ago on YouTube. It’s Jonny being interviewed before the start - nothing particularly dramatic or shocking in what he says but good to see his determined frame of mind.
Day 15Nov 23rd, 2008
by tim -
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Day 15Nov 23rd, 2008
by tim -
Charting the blog chatter
Just for the heck of it I ran the term ‘vendee globe’ through Technorati to generate graphs of the number of mentions it was getting in both English and French over the past 30 days. The charts are below. There’s an obvious spike at the start of the race, and then - as the fleet spreads out and moves away, so the noise dies down.
Chart of posts containing ‘Vendee Globe’ in French on blogs of any authority over the past 30 days
Chart of posts containing ‘Vendee Globe’ in English on blogs of any authority over the past 30 days
The charts obviously reflect the fact that blogosphere is more English than French, because despite the fact that race is massive in France and not so big in North America and the UK the chatter is still slightly louder in English than French. To be fair, many of the French sites being indexed probably also provide content in English, whereas none of the English speaking sites would.
Should be interesting to see where the next spike comes, and what precipitates it.
Day 15Nov 23rd, 2008
by tim
