Past the Canary Islands

Yesterday saw the head of the fleet pass the Canary Island along the West side. Where the first boats that followed the Coastal route just now are to arrive. 


The wind has calmed down to the single digits and also veered to the North. These conditions have slowed the progress, but as the air and water temperatures are warmer it is still considered beautiful sailing. 


My Rank: 101 now in the fleet that has grown to 1048 boats. 


Have you discovered the Chatroom in LiveSkipper (LS) already?
It sits below the game screen, but  only visible when you do not engaged the Full screen option. 

at the arrow you find the button for Login or Logout. 
There are standard 3 Chatrooms, one for each of the main LiveSkipper languages , France, English and Spanish. Type your chat in the one line open space and if done Send
For those skippers that have joined a Club within LS, there is a special Club chatroom, only open of club-members. 
It allows you also to open a special chatroom with a friend of yours, so you can have some private talks. Search for your friends boat-name in the list on right side, if found , double click on it and a special Chatroom will open for you two.

Past the Azoren Islands

It is now definite! The route from the Western strategists has proven to be the better over the Coastal strategy for conquering the Northern Atlantic !
The quickest coastal boat is still some 200 Nm North of Madeira, while the best western boats have passed the Azoren with about 400 Nm. 


The wind has weakened now however, and is causing a difficult approach to Cape Verde islands. With the weaker winds, comes also more variable winds, so what one morning looks a good strategy, might turn around in the afternoon, which reduced the progress. The main point is that all sailors are in the same winds, so it looks still an even battle for the Podium. 


My Rank this morning: 104 ;and the fleet has grown to 1045 participating boats. 
If you would be interested in the trend of my progress and that of a lot of other boats in the English Forum of LiveSkipper, then you may have a look at my race status report LiveSkipper boats -- trending for race status

Polar diagram 
Did I propose yesterday  to try the Advance Mode in the simulator, today I like to inform you on the benefits of using the polar diagram available. 

To engage the Polar diagram, you click on the "Polar" icon in the right-side top of the screen; see the hand. 








A new window will open with a lot of information on the boat, its sails and its performance. 

On the top you see the type of boat this polar is for. 
In the half circle (0-180degrees is shown as this boat and sails are symmetrical) you see different coloured curves. This is one curve for each of the available sails, each with its own colour. [the Auto sail does not have a curve, but it would be a curve that indicated about 90-95% of the performance of the best sail per heading.]  
The yellow straight line is an indication for your TWA (True Wind Angle; the angle between your boat-heading and the wind-direction) here it is 108degree. 
With this you can easy find the optimal heading to sail most effective. 


The polar tells me then that the purple sail "the Genaker" is the fastest sail with a boatspeed of 29.1 kts at the windspeed of 17.2 kts. 


This information on sail selection , heading , TWA and boatspeed is also available and permanently visible in the bottom right side of the screen, see the screenprint on the right.
Sails can be selected by the arrows around where now Genaker is shown, locked now as I sail with the WP scheduler on. Auto Heading will engage the autopilot that locks the TWA, so it will change your heading when the wind-direction will change. 
The 2 small arrows around My Boat, will activate any marks that you have set in the simulator and allows boat setting from the location of that mark. 


What would happen when the wind increases in strength? Well, you can simulate this by clicking on windspeed and up it to about 19.7 kts 

see a next polar with higher windspeed. 
Now it informs me that the "Solent Jib" sail (green curve)is the most effective for this wind-direction, -speed and my heading. Giving me a boatspeed of 30.3kts!

But would I change heading and the TWA increases to 115degree, again it will be the Genaker that is the best sail. 


So this is a Fantastic tools to assist you in sailing optimal conditions, that for sure you need if you want to end up on the Podium in this fleet of experienced Sailors. 

The Chase is ON!

Yesterday the Western heading was changed into a Southern one, once the hart of the Big Depression was passed.
After some hours in calmer winds, the wind became West and got stronger and stronger 20+kts. Now sailing south with a boat speed of 27.7 Kts; Fantastic sailing!.

Please be reminded that I keep  a map with the daily location(green pin's) here Suratna TransOcean route 

Rank:106

For the New sailors in LiveSkipper I would propose, if you haven't done it, to change to the "Advanced" mode, {look in Setting menu, and change with the buttons on right side of the window} . 
You get some additional tools/facilities that will help you in making the sailing more comfortable and keeping a better pace! 

First of All some different Sails are available and you will see that there is at least one sail the gives a better boatspeed as the Auto-Sail, as these special sails are better designed for their specific purpose. Be careful, however, if you sail with the wrong sail, your boat speed will drop below that of the auto-sail. 

And a very good tool comes available the WayPoint (WP) scheduler and Scheduler. These allow you to mark a target on the map and set heading and sail to it. Then click the mark to make it active and you can set a next mark, with its heading and sail to reach it, and so forth. This allows you to schedule hours if need be days in advance your route of choice using the sails you prefer ; there is of course the option to keep using the auto-sail which normally is 90-95% effective compared with the best sail, but prevents sailing with the wrong sail. 
The difference in scheduler mode is that WP (green color) is scheduling on location, so you have to reach the mark before the actions of that mark are actioned on your boat, while the Scheduler (purple color) is scheduling in time. 
Wind shift, could therefor cause the boat to make change in heading and sail at another location, but at the properly set time. 
So WP is very precise to sail around cliffs, and buoys. The autoheading is only possible to engage in the Scheduler, not the WP program.


Try it out, and if you have any questions.............ask :)

         

The Big Depression in the North Atlantic

The Big Depression in the North Atlantic pulled the TransOcean Fleet apart! 

The "western" sailors are approaching the centre of this depression after which they will turn South and try to catch up the "eastern" sailors along the Spanish coast!
The Route will then go via the Azoren to the Cape Verde Islands (see the arrow) but whether the route is straight south will depend on the wind systems. 


The fleet is daily growing and now the number of participating boats is 1031 already. 
My rank this morning:491, but I still see it as the best route investing now and harvesting later; hopefully. 

The Wide Open Atlantic

That was a FANTASTIC day of Sailing through the Channel, YESTERDAY, I mean.


Sailing just before Dover in a 200+ place at my day-break, I turned West and gained already some places. The Channel with a strong  Easterly wind that was strongest in the middle 5-8 Nm, made it favourable to make regular jibes. So I was buzy jibing and even sometimes, depending on wind strength changing a sail here and there . This brought my at the early evening depending on my jibe (port or starboard) to a 33-56th place. 


After passing the longitude of Plymouth , however, the wind veered to the south and then you will have found out how less effective these boats can sail in upwind heading. 
A wind forecast review showed me more southerly winds along the Portuguese coast to come of weak to moderate strength. So looking further to the West on the Atlantic stronger and more favourable westerly winds are expected. 
So I decided to sail west towards the better winds and hope these forecasts sustain and I will enjoy speedy sailing in a good day from now in Southerly directions. 
I hope , I am right which will give me a better chance on the Podium and if not well I will have lost a lot of places. 


It is obvious that the better ranked boats in this moment are sailing the Bay of Biscay, but will they stick ?


My place this morning was 425th ; the fleet has grown to 1012 participating boats. 

Racing the Channel

Normally I will not update twice a day but today being the first full day I make an exception.

This ( my) morning (well in Europe around mid-night) the leaders in the Fleet had just passed the Strait of Dover and heading Westwards. Now about 12 hrs later the leaders
have almost reached the longitude of Plymouth in Cornwall looking for the moment to make a turn South for rounding the Frence cliffs at Brest or will the winds forecasts have better options.

The winds have been strong and I have sailed a short moment even a 30kts boatspeed.
It was rather busy though with many jibes, as there was a narrow path in the middle of the Channel with the highest winds and some sail changes to make the optimum speed.

Some explanation on the Ranking figures:
Some of you might have wondered why is my ranking so low as I am not in the front??? or why is it that high I  am almost the most westerly boat in the Channel ???
The progress control in LiveSkipper does measure the distance between your boat and the next gate, that is at the Cape Verde island in our case. This implies that sailing in Westerly direction that distance is almost the same and it matters a lot whether you are sailing under the Frence coast (shorter distance better classification) of sailing under the English coast (longer distance - lower classification). Trust me when we have turned and progress in southerly direction is made, it all will shake up and show a more accurate ranking status.
For sailors who want to see there ranking , you may have a look at the ranking list
 rank
or you can push the icon just below the game window on the LiveSkipper simulator screen.

Winds are now showing some sign of weakening so there is an interesting day of sailing ahead of us.

A Good Start

The Zeilen TransOcean sailing race came to a good start from IJmuiden. The fleet benefited from a strong (around 20kts) Easterly breeze.
This morning 3 gmt most boats have passed the Strait of Dover already and are turning to the West into the Channel and still benefiting from this strong Easterly winds.

I myself did not have the optimal course as is reflected by my ranking of 191 in the fleet of 965 boats. However the race is still long and there will be plenty of opportunity to win (or maybe loose) places.

Though it is late, you still can register for this race, here Liveskipper ;be it that you will have some miles to make up to the fleet.

The Start ###TODAY### of Zeilen TransOcean Sailing Race

 A last warning for the Start TODAY 1st of May 2011, of the Zeilen TransOceans virtual Sailing Race. Starting time is 19:00 GMT or 21:00 CET

There is still time to register here LiveSkipper , or on Nauticlink ; register for free and enjoy the excitement of virtual racing. I hope to see many sailors on the Start

LiveSkipper has been refreshed and it is an easy, comfortable, clear simulator and allows you sufficient nightrest with the excellent WayPoint Scheduler; and it is completely FREE even including the Scheduler, different sails and the auto pilot !

A study of the winds for the 1st day of racing shows mainly Easterly winds , strong , so I guess that Spinakker will have to do its work. Most likely the boats will pass Strait of Dover within 8-9 hrs to enter the Channel ; still in Easterly winds. 

It promisses to be a quick start in this race.