Navigation Mac embarks on the Vendée Globe 2020

Hey yes, everything happens ! In all my computer-nautical career I had never played any computer game whatsoever, not even the historical Windows card game that consumed thousands of hours of idle office time for businesses… but you should never say : Never !

So, therefore,, here I am registered for Virtual Regatta, one among the most 340.000 players registered at this time, ready to start the Vendée Globe tomorrow at 1:02 p.m.. Like any beginner, I watched a few videos to quickly understand this game, Who, on balance, seems relatively easy for a confirmed sailor. But, from there to play in the big league, there are still several oceans to cross !

Unfortunately I have two handicaps : I'm not a gamer, and I'm even less of a racer. I'm more of a contemplative navigator, and I have never set sail for a "Circuit" 24 ” (the elders will understand). But it does not prevent : The greatest interest of this game, From my point of view, is to familiarize the players, even if not marine, with the notions of weather, and sailors with the notions of routing. And it's exciting !

I am even more motivated than my two fellows, Olivier Bouyssou and Henri Laurent, bring their jointly developed routing module to this new competition, integrated from the start into Virtual Regatta (¹).

I will therefore try to follow up on the weather and routing of this virtual race over the coming months, while keeping an eye on the skippers who are, them, will not be comfortably seated in front of a screen and a drink in hand. With the friendly complicity of Yann Amice, Scientific Director of SportRIZER whose specialist and weather referent he is, I'll try to share here my point of view on the virtual regatta in terms of weather-routing strategy.

Yann Amice has entered into a partnership with the group Ouest France to provide them with daily weather monitoring and analysis, covering both the actual race (²) and the virtual regatta (³). SailGrib and Weather4D provide Yann with the forecast routings made with their two applications on a daily basis, which allow Yann to illustrate his analysis in addition to his own meteorological sources. And this fine team gets on board of course, with each his own boat, in the Vendée Globe of Virtual Regatta from today.

Forecast routing at D-1 GFS 0.25°

Sea state forecast on D+24h

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(¹) Weather4D embarks on the Vendée Globe 2020
(²) https://www.ouest-france.fr/vendee-globe/meteo-marine-course/
(³) https://www.ouest-france.fr/sport/voile/virtual-regatta/vendee-globe-virtuel/
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