Contagious. Very contagious: Vendee Globe for millions!!!

Want to start chasing François Gabart or Loïck Peyron? Now you can do it easily and recklessly! 

Surfing at sunset in the south hemisphere, screenshot - copyright photo Alexander Panzeri

 

Link to the original article in Russian: -> https://bit.ly/3v341sw <-

(this version of the article has some extra parts not published in the Russian version due to the paper constrains)

 

Gallery images: https://bit.ly/3l2LjLV

  

 

 

The Vendée Globe singles regatta has just ended: at the beginning of November last year, 33 yachtsmen left the port town of Les Sables-d'Olonne to circumnavigate the globe. This most difficult circumnavigation has been held since 1989, and for all the time less than a hundred professional yachtsmen have managed to complete it. To participate in the Vendée Globe, the qualities of just a good racer are not enough: you need to be a little superhuman - and therefore the names of the winners will forever remain in the history of sailing.

However, now everyone can participate in the Vendée Globe and many other gruelling and dangerous regattas. We are talking about sailing competitions in the virtual space, e-Sailing: they are rapidly gaining popularity, and the situation with the coronavirus plays an important role in this. Thanks to the pandemic, the world turned to simulators: for many it was a revelation, although, for example, people associated with aviation (including myself) know that simulators have long been an everyday tool for training. They allow you to hone skills and experiment beyond the boundaries of the possible.

VR - Virtual Regatta

I started sailing quite late and, carried away, immediately began to look for a good simulator to keep in shape. Later, these lessons helped me a lot in my work as a yacht photographer, because I learned to understand in advance where the boat would be during the race (like during the IRC European Championship or with Ultimate trimaran in Nice or IMOCA60 in Monaco). Unfortunately, I cannot often train with my sailing teams (usually as bowman), as I spend a lot of time filming, so the simulator is very important to me. As a result, I go on a virtual voyage every day, and it has become as much an integral part of my life as, for example, meeting a friend or taking pictures.

I am currently using the Virtual Regatta (VR) platform. It consists of two parts: VR Offshore and VR Inshore. VR Offshore was founded in 2006 and was tied to the Route du Rhum regatta, and later became "accompany" all major sailing events in France, including the Tour de France à la voile. The second part, VR Inshore, appeared almost ten years later, but quickly grew into an independent and extremely active project.

Anyone can take part in regattas, be it an absolute beginner or a sailing veteran. At the VR races, you can meet Italian Alberto Bona (navigator and skipper on class40 and mini6.5), Briton Samantha Davies (Skipper of Team SCA in V.O.R, actually participating to the real Vendée Globe, so she is not on e-sea), legendary Frenchmen Loïk Peyron (“the Jedi master”, his palmares is too long), François Gabart (Winner of 2012-2013 Vendée Globe), and Vincent Riou (Winner of 2004-2005 Vendée Globe). How do you know that it is really them? It's simple: firstly, they have a blue badge of a certified VR player, and secondly, they themselves do not hide that they are racing there.

When the electronic regatta takes place simultaneously with the real one, the platform also monitors the "live" yachts, placing them in the "game". Of course, virtual yachts always go faster. Their captains can sleep in their beds without storm or rolling, they do not need to spend time and effort changing sails or repairing equipment.

Our crew

I got to know VR a long time ago, archive in VR says that the first event is Tour de France 2015, probably in conjunction to the real event stage in Nice while I was on the beach, and my first major offshore regatta was Clipper Round The World 2015/2016. I have been playing on VR Inshore since its inception and during this time I have become one of the 200 best virtual yachtsmen in the world and best 40 Italians. In 2020, I was in 25th place among Italians, which gave me access again to the playoffs, where I fought for the national title.

In yachting, as in motorsport, there are key competitions, and the America's Cup is among them. My team at VR Offshore is called Americani d'Italia because our coach is partial to America's Cup. Our crew is diverse: it includes experienced skippers from among amateur yachtsmen, but no professional riders, there is a lawyer, a notary, a lifeguard, a photographer. And now there are two ladies among us.

I am proud to be part of Americani d'Italia, where everyone exchanges experience and insures each other against mistakes. I'll be blunt: the messaging service and chats on the VR platform are implemented badly, so we started a chat-group on Telegram, where we publish our internal rules and weekly reports. Our rating is quite high: we are in 92nd place in the world, second among Italian teams, and in the just concluded Vendée Globe we reached 63rd position (out of 1200 teams) - a very serious achievement for an amateur team.

 

In one of the thousands messages of the Telegram chat, a member has had the idea to make a prize for the first of the team that didn’t have been awarded with official prizes (we have also an award for grounded e-boat: Premio Scoglio d’Oro), so secretly a member carved a wooden model of the IMOCA60 and painted by his wife with the color of G. Pedote boat. Why Pedote? He is the only Italian to race this year, so all team has decided to “paint” the e-boat with his colors (VR personalisation feature, normally is not free, but this time yes).

Special Prize handmade for the members of the team - copyright © photo Alexander Panzeri 

Be ready!

Preparing for the Vendée Globe virtual regatta in July. What was included in it? First of all, a race requires a reliable weather forecast. The VR Offshore platform uses the free GFS-US (Global Forecast System) weather model, but we also use other models and we need to get ready to work with them. Secondly, it is necessary to set up the yacht, pick up sails, deck equipment, and also decide whether to put foils on the boat or not. All other options must be paid for with real or virtual money earned from other regattas. Finally, you need to set up a very useful tool the zezo.org virtual chart-plotter (nowadays everyone knows and uses it, so it’s not secret). This free platform processes the data stream from VRo and proposes a route that matches your yacht's capabilities. Before, I was skeptical about such services and independently calculated the route on segments of 24-72 hours, using the weather forecast and flair, but Zezo made my life much easier. The polar diagrams available there (including those taking into account the presence of the yacht's wings) allow you to analyze and correct the routes proposed by the program (To use it, you just need a browser, better with Chromium engine, Brave.com is my suggestion) so you can use the extension that helps a lot!).

VRo boat upgrade interface, screenshot - copyright © photo Alexander Panzeri

  

Evaluation of multi routes and progress, screenshot - copyright © photo Alexander Panzeri

I ran my “boat - plotter - meteo” combination at the Le Mauricienne regatta, but then, due to the low computing power of the VR servers, my attempt stopped just a week before the end of the race (my estimated finish time was really cool!) and now, a little angry, but looking forward to a big fight, I waited for the start of the Vendée Globe. The VR platform does not differ in the stability of its operation, and in order to insure against its random errors, such as the loss of the laid route, I created a spreadsheet where I transfer information from Zezo. It serves as a logbook for me, and besides, it is a proof of my actions. Since Telegram allows voting in a group, we were able to collect useful statistics on yacht settings, which helped the newcomers a lot, plus I noted and analyzed the use of sails in my journal. From now on, such documentation will become the standard for our future regattas. 

Statistic of the use of the sails during the race - copyright © photo Alexander Panzeri

 

Thanks to Zezo, I came up with a tool with which you can recalculate the position in the overall rating based on distance to finish (DTF), since this function in VRo works just disgusting and, to put it mildly, does not reflect the real situation.

The fact is that this year more than a million participants took part in the start of the virtual Vendée Globe. And when I say that I finished in 7298th place, it does not reflect my true performance. It's another matter if we evaluate the position as a percentage of the total number of participants: it turns out that I entered 0.7% of the leaders. It is as if I came first in a race where 100 boats competed! Not bad, isn't it ?! 

Regatta. Start

The virtual Vendée Globe began even before the start of the real regatta (it was delayed by 2.5 hours due to weather), since the VRo platform cannot cope with so many participants. In addition, many wanted to watch the live stream from Les Sables d'Olonne on YouTube. And then, while the lone yachtsmen were struggling with the sea and sleep, we, the e-sailors, tried to overcome the platform's errors. Day by day, the refresh rate dropped and eventually dropped from 5 to 12-14 minutes. Apparently, the owners of VR were reducing the load on the servers, so it took up to half a hour to check the current situation! This means that we could not, as before, safely approach banks, islands and ice accumulations, which is especially important in the Antarctic region, where every centimetre is important for leadership. If, due to the low update rate of the system, you accidentally cross the line of ice (and this has happened to all the best players, including me), you are fined, slowing the yacht to a quarter of the speed. All this looks like a mockery, because in the end the boat practically stops (e.g.: v_cruise=10, v_ice=2.5,v_change=v_cruice/2=5, v_change_ice=(v_cruice/2)/4=1.25).

 

Departure of the real and virtual Vendée Globe with AR model from the app on iOS - copyright © photo Alexander Panzeri

 

In the first week, we broke away from the real fleet by about 100 miles, but at one point, real yachts, in some magical way, bypassed us in one night ... Perhaps the reason was that the platform switched us to a slower computational model for our IMOCA 60. Lack of transparency in the system spoiled the mood at the very beginning of the race. But that didn't stop me and the team.

Regatta. Outcomes

This time, the Vendée Globe was accompanied by very unusual weather: we met two large storms in the North Atlantic, and there was almost no usual calm in the tropics and equator (a.k.a: doldrums). During the second storm, which was called "Theta", I woke up at four in the morning and was about to navigate the yacht by hand, so that I could take full advantage of the strong wind and not be surprised by the next platform surprises in the morning. But, as they say here in Italy, il troppo stroppia ... For about five minutes I stared at the map and fell asleep. Recovering in an hour, I realized that during this time I had fallen from 3440th to 73,528th place in the rating. I managed to play back this annoying mistake only to the Cape of Good Hope.
I am still worried about this missed opportunity and reassure myself that in November 2015, during Route du Rhum, Alex Thomson had a similar situation. At the same time, this mistake made it clear that until now I was surrounded by real champions. 

A view during the night with the only feature as panorama: the moon - copyright © photo Alexander Panzeri 

 

The ability to challenge them is one of the main features of virtual sports, because in real life it would hardly work. You are looking for a way to overtake them, developing strategy and tactics, follow your "white rabbit" (for me it was Francois Gabart) and now you are approaching him, but he escapes again and again ... perhaps not without the help of virtual platform bugs. For example, in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, Gabart lagged behind quite strongly, but was able to catch up and bypass me in a day, covering a suspiciously large distance for those wind-wave conditions. Well, let it remain on VR's conscience, although I have all the moves recorded.

The final part of the regatta is always the most intriguing. On the way to the Bay of Biscay, the fleet is often divided: - Someone walks along the coast of Galicia, - Someone comes from the north. I chose the northern route and made the right decision, having noticeably accelerated before the finish. Although I did not manage to catch up with Gabart, to whom I lost only 1 hour and 8 minutes; on the other hand, I beat Vincent Riou by 15 hours and won 3 hours and 23 minutes against Loïck Peyron himself!

So, in this regatta I fulfilled all my goals: I improved my previous result, I was not mistaken in navigation and entered 1% of the first finishers. I was seriously competing with the leaders, so I did not skimp on the paid options (spending 29.99[€]), which include all sails, fenders, winches, autopilots and a polished boat hull. The winner of the virtual Vendée Globe is Jean-Claude Goudon, who performed under the nickname tigrou26120. He was ahead of me by only 5 hours and 38 minutes.

Virtual and reality

While competing in the virtual Vendée Globe or Ocean Race, we naturally do not risk our lives like real yachtsmen, but we face other problems and experience a serious psychological stress, sometimes we do not sleep at night, looking at the screen every minute. For those who are not ready for such sacrifices, VR has other racing options and many classes of yachts from Figaro and Mini 6.5 to VOR65 and MAXI100. Of course, the VR platform is far from ideal, but today it has no competitors, and perhaps that is why the monopolist does not strive for rapid progress. The simulator engine is closed, hence a lot of unpleasant bugs, including the overtaking that was unrealistic in time and distance mentioned above. Many players would like to have finer control over the boat and complain about too long updating of the 3D rendering and animation (sometimes up to a minute!). There are also problems with the use of virtual radar, which is practically useless so far, warning systems must report danger before the ship hits the shore, and not after. Also, VR still has a very poor picture. It's a pity, because racing in picturesque waters against the backdrop of carefully traced landscapes of legendary places like Fastnet or the Isle of Wight could attract much more participants.

In conclusion, I will say that in general I am very pleased with the last regatta. Our team has become even more united, and I look forward to the day when we can see each other in real life. In the meantime, I'm close to the finish line in the virtual Jules Verne Trophy and I'm getting ready for the America's Cup races, where I will compete with Ken Read and Bruno Troublé. Or maybe with you?

Link to the original article in Russian: https://bit.ly/3emDz60 

(this version of the article has some extra parts not published in the Russian version due to the paper constrains)

 

Gallery images: https://bit.ly/3l2LjLV