NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Vendée Globe (off topic)
From: Patrick Goold
Date: 2012 Dec 29, 13:47 -0500
From: Patrick Goold
Date: 2012 Dec 29, 13:47 -0500
These people are under tremendous stress! Have you watched any of the videos? The lead boats are averaging 18 knots, at least one has gone twenty-four hours consistently above twenty! Winds have been frequently in the 40 knot range, with correspondingly large seas. Putting on one's clothes or using the toilet is an athletic event in these conditions. Sitting upright in the cockpit would work most of the major muscle groups. The boats are under near maximum stress, too. Many different sorts of equipment could fail, the failure of which would lead to instant disaster. How to sleep? How to keep an adequate watch? I wonder how many could proceed if CN was the only method of navigation. At the speed and under the conditions most experienced in the Indian Ocean, it appeared to be difficult to impossible to remain in the cockpit for long, much less move out from under the hard dodger. For me, such racing transgresses several fundamental principles of seamanship. Bertrand de Broc, currently 11th place, brings this home with one simple sentence to explain his place in the back of the pack, " J'ai peut-être été trop prudent." Taking part in this race, not to mention winning it, is incompatible with prudence. But I cannot deny it a certain magnificence! Nor can I deny that I feel a tiny twinge of shame that there are no Americans in the game.
Patrick
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On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Marcel Tschudin <marcel.e.tschudin@gmail.com> wrote:
The skippers of this 2 to 3 months lasting solo around the world race have my sympathy. 20 of them started in France on November 13 and 49 days later 13 of them are still in the race.
The race: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/presentation.html
Current positions: http://tracking2012.vendeeglobe.org/en/
Updated information in English: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/
Marcel
"The cesium or rubidium clocks in the GPS satellites operate at 10.22999999545 MHz rather than the nominal 10.23 MHz to compensate for both the special relativity effect of a moving source and the general relativity effect of operating from a point of higher gravitational potential. The master clock at the GPS control center near Colorado Springs is set to run 16 ns a day fast to compensate for its location 1830 m above sea level."
