Comments on: Vendée Globe – not a young person’s sport?

By: admin

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:21:45 +0000

Welcome aboard, Yachtmaddie. Yes, having recently experienced the doldrums via the sailonline.org simulator for the Volvo race, I have seen for myself how the doldrums can change the leaderboard drastically.

Even the quality of information and the software for processing it that are available to today’s ocean race skippers still leaves a lot in the lap of the gods. Light weather racing on small courses in dinghies is a recipe for headaches – singlehanding a 60-footer through several days of that kind of thing is a real test of unflappability and stamina.

By: tim

tim — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:51:49 +0000

The age thing is really interesting. Today a man of 47 can be as fit (or fitter) than a 24 year old. Many are (note to self: start that diet and exercise regime). I think the most important thing on this race will be mental stamina and that’s possibly not a function of age. It may be that the people doing this race are human outliers anyway…

By: Yachtmaddie

Yachtmaddie — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:20:48 +0000

You’re quite right about the physical effort required on the Open 60s, and it’s endurance as well as brute strength. The other attribute, without which success is going to be very difficult, is experience. You can see that in the wily older French skippers who have been there (many times), done it and got the T-shirt. This morning off the Canaries is a classic example – deciding which way to go, east, west or through is really difficult, but gets a lot easier the more times you have done it before! The same applies in spades to the decision the Vendee boys are about to make on where to push through the Doldrums.

The final factor is luck, so let’s hope that the Brit skippers (especially Jonny in ARTEMIS) have plebty of it.

Yachtmaddie