Fish

Thank you IT,No problems here.

??? You seem awfully fixated on warning points for someone wanting to engage in polite discourse. And your last comment really doesn't make you sound like much of a newbie. I'm not going to feed this troll. Can someone tell me how to find the "ignore" button?

Don't think he even went that slow in the doldrums.He's bearing 24 deg, with a VMG of 0.3 The wind shown is forecast wind I believe, not actual, but either way, looks suspicious. Le Clearch is doing 10 knots bearing 124. So they have gybed away from each other. This could be a telling stage of the race.

I'm also qualified to yacht master ocean.Doesn't qualify me to bully someone and pass judgement on a web forum though. Sorry you had to get rescued so many times. What are you sailing at the moment, a trimaran or an armchair?

So what do you sail?

You have a lot to say for a newbie. why don't you tell us a little about yourself? Have you been here before?

Hay Smithy, are you aware your wee right up has made the front page of sailing anarchy? I see you and phil are all over the thread.

There is one ransom to bluff. The big deal with the Vendee Globe is actually finishing, so looking after the boat, and not pushing it too hard is a major aspect. By bluffing on the foil, he would be still sailing his boat as fast as he can, but trick Le Cleach into throttling back a bit, so as to look after his boat. The only benefit in Thomson doing that is to keep Le Cleach in touch for an opportunity to pass him. Having said all that, and watching the other footage posted by Willow, I don't think he's bluffing. He is running more sail, and the main point was his keel was ventilating,

There is no clear footage of Thomsons broken foil. The way his boat is jumping you would think he doesn't have one. But then, his keel doesn't look all that canted. Would he be healing his boat over In front of the helo to hide his ruse, if he is just bluffing about breaking the foil? Unlikely probably, but still maybe a possibility.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x542qr7_j25-armel-le-cleac-h-et-alex-thomson-filmes-par-la-marine-nationale-vendee-globe_sport Footage of Thomson and Le Cleach in th southern ocean near the Kergulens, shot from a helicopter launched off a French frigate. Crazy! They are both doing circa 20 knots. Thomson is jumping around his boat like a madman. In the footage shown, Le Cleach's boat is flat and smooth looking, but under a lot of water and spray. Thomson's is healed hard on its chine and is all over the place. He is running a staysail in addition to what Le Cleach has up, so

My opinion, which is based largely on 2 hand sailing, but also based on having a perfectly good furler that we removed, in order to have better sailing is :- If you want the boat to sail well, and be easy to handle, then (I think) it's best to get properly sized / designed headsails for particular wind ranges. We had a furler. Good furling sails are always a bit of a compromise. They aren't as big as a proper #1, so lack power in the sub 10 Knot wind range. Generally the are sized at about a 1.5. As discussed, a partly furled sail doesn't do that well. So th furling sail is limited to

We could, but unlike in the Beneteau incident (Checki Raffiki), nobody died in this incident. The keel didn't fall off either. In fact, it sounds like the structural integrity of the boat didn't fail at all. So a bit difficult to get all upset about it really.

yes, but they have 4 of them, i.e. the don't try sailing with partly furled sails, they have a purpose designed and sized sail for each job / wind range. They normally have three working sails, starting form the #1 and going through to the solent or the equivalent of a storm jib, and then a zero or other downwind type sails on removable furlers. The benefit of a furler is in sail handling. There is no benefit in sail area control from furling.

Potentially off topic question, but why do you want a furler? You mention it's a hassle changing sails by yourself. If you are wanting a furler so as to part furl the sail to reduce sail area because the boat is getting over powered, they may be a different option. I'm assuming a fair bit here, so apologies if I'm off. Old sails get over powered easily. They are baggy and stretch to get baggier when the wind gets up. A logical response is often to think you need a smaller sail, or to get a furler so you can just part furl a little away. Generally, part furled sails have terrible shape a

Agreed, Sorry, I don't see a crack in that photo. All I see is a red flashing warning light...

Intrigue and conspiracies. Alex Thomson has a lead of 110 nm and is still doing 20 knots. There are no photos of this broken foil... So did he actually break a foil, or is he just saying that to fox his competitors? His team now say, ta da, he has a spare on board, and he can change it out from the deck opening, which is why they designed it like that. On the front they've been riding, if he foxed the chasers into backing off the gas, to preserve their boats, he can ride out a lead on the front that would be very difficult for them to get back. If you get a weather system in front, you

Gee KM, I like your new avatar. Not trying to make a point or anything are you? PS, I think you are at zero risk of upsetting anyone with that discrete level of subtlety

Dynamic Stability System, aka foils.

Welcome. Its not impossible to single hand that set up. Basically you need an autopilot. For hoisting or dropping the main, all it needs to do is hold the boat head to wind (i.e. make the boat go straight). being tiller set up's, it will be easy to get a cheapy tiller pilot if they don't already have one. Having to go to the mast to reef single handed is a bit of a headache. You would need a tiller pilot that can handle sailing in edgy conditions (i.e. blowy enough that you've decided you need to reef). Pureists may also say you can lash the tiller etc. that would be fairly easy for hoist

Design life, a very short design life is definitely a time bomb when combined with punters that have no knowledge of such things. For the price, 10 years hard use is probably reasonable value for money on some of these boats. I suspect the average punter doesn't even think of or understand that though. While you understand hull deck joints and metal through hulls, most punters are only interested in upholstery colour options and how big the swim platform is. I've seen it at boat shows, sometimes the sales guys talk about the construction, normally in some non-standard trade name jargon (I s

This is a 23 year old "cheap European production boat". The NZ market is awash with a wide range of new "cheap European production boats", that can be purchased with a five year warranty and no immediate maintenance requirements for comparatively very low prices. This is also pushing down the price of quality older NZ built boats substantially. A section of this market is designed to a price, not to a quality. These are not NZ designed and built boats. I have no problem with that, the thought of getting a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom floating bach with a five year warranty and no maintenance i

So Thomson has lost a foil, while in the lead and 259 m from claiming a new 24 hr speed record... http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/16317/le-cleac-h-and-josse-close-in-on-thomson Thomson now hopes that the remainder of the round the world race will be on Starboard (he has 19,265 miles to go) forever the optimist.

What shull we do with the drunken sailor? (With accompanying sea shanty music)

What mental health system?

Wheels, I am genuinely interested in tides, moons and this super moon. Your OP is topical and informative. Climate change has been done to death in the below links 56 page topic. While I was being mainly fascetious calling for a ban on discussing climate change, I understand some people are happy banging their head against that particular wall. Just exchanging my views on a topic in the forum. If we all agreed on everything, this place would get boring fast. Tides and this upcoming super moon are entirely seperate to the whole climate change thing. http://crew.org.nz/forum/index.php/topic/