Friday 13 November will not be a lucky day for the Vendée Globe skippers 2020 (¹). They will have to negotiate the meeting with the tropical storm "Theta" which crosses their course with average winds which can reach the 40 knots and strong gusts. Especially the sea will be to fear because, strongly crossed when passing the low pressure center, the waves may exceed the 6 meters and surge chaotically.
Competitors' position grouped on 12 November at 8:00 UTC in the North-East of the Azores
Security routing will certainly be imposed on the majority as these are only the first days of the race, especially for " foilers "Which did not benefit from a long preparation. The next two screenings on Friday 13 on the routing this morning carried out from the head of the fleet, overall should be followed by the majority of seafarers :
Position on the routing on Friday 13. GFS weather on 12 November at 00:00 UTC
Position on the routing on Friday 13. Waves Météo France on 12 November 00:00 UTC
They would have to move west of the eastward moving storm to avoid the harshest conditions. This reality which prevails on the water will not be perceived by the players of Virtual Regatta, whose trajectories can happily take advantage of the strong winds of the storm to increase their score (²).
Real race routing versus Virtual Regatta game
This is all the subtlety of routing, a very useful tool for the browser, but which must be analyzed and confronted with lived realities. A guide not to follow blindly. In the "race" routing above, a wave height constraint of 4 meters has been introduced in the calculation. Forcing the routing to largely bypass the center of the storm.
After this muscular episode, two or three days of respite before the Doldrums will allow sailors to decompress a little, and to " foilers "To make the powder speak ! As for the players, they will have little strategic option to make a difference.
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(¹) Weather West France – Vendée Globe 12/11/2020
(²) Weather West France – Vendée Globe – Virtual Regatta 12/11/2020
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Another special feature of VR is that the predicted weather is equal to that observed on the water (short term). Weather4D is very useful because its time horizon in GFS is much more distant than that offered in VR (well done commercially Francis and Olivier)