Vendée Globe - getting the penalties out of the way
Today’s ocean racers, singlehanded or crewed, are not as isolated as they used to be - except when the electronic kit on board packs up. This means that competitors in the Vendée Globe are far less lonely and isolated than round-the-world yachtsmen were thirty years ago - although it doesn’t necessarily mean there will be anyone nearby that can help if you get into serious trouble in the southern ocean. The video at the end of the post linked to above shows a rescue in 2006 which only happened after Mike Golding turned round and beat back 90 miles to reach Alex Thomson.
There is an unusual use to which race organisers put their ability to track the competitors: monitoring penalties. In this Vendée Globe, six competitors missed a buoy near the start that was defined as a mark of the course, for which the jury awarded a 30 minute penalty this morning. Earlier on, Brian Thompson was awarded a much larger penalty - 4 hours - because some of his crew were late leaving his boat. If you saw any video of the start, you’ll realise that this wasn’t necessarily due to negligence - getting from a fast-moving Ocean 60 into and RIB under those sea condition was quite hairy.
I had assumed that these penalties would just be added to their times through scoring gates and the eventual finish, but no - here are the rules:
“The penalised boat shall call the Race Management to agree upon a waypoint and a time where the penalty will be taken. When the boat passes the agreed waypoint in question, the skipper shall call the Race Management to confirm his/her exact position so that the penalty time can be recorded. When the penalty time has elapsed and this has been confirmed by the Race Management,the boat shall pass the same waypoint once again before continuing the race.”
This is only possible because the race committee knows exactly where all the boats are. The Volvo Ocean Race allows a tactic known as Stealth Mode, in which skippers are allowed to refrain from transmitting position information (which can be useful to nearby rivals) for a period of 12 hours. A favourite use of this weapon is to change course under cover of darkness when racing in sight of another competitor.
Rich Wilson has now completed his 30 minute penalty, and Brian Thompson his 4 hour one.
