Comments on: Thoughts on how to not hit islands

By: kroppyer

kroppyer — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 11:01:15 +0000

See the full report of vestas here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/static/assets/content_v2/media/files/m36616_team-vestas-wind-inquiry-report-released-on-9-march-2015.pdf
Boats do not necessarily have the same software or charts, but Vestas has the same software as others, and because there’s probably not much options, also a lot of the same charts. They had a different set-up though: routing on one laptop, navigation on the other.
As always, it was a combination of factors. The three things that stood out for me were:
– Race control announced that boats were allowed in that area of the course very late, at a time that the on-board navigators were not supposed to discuss navigational things with their team.
– The detailed charts were on the navigation laptop, but for that night, only the routing laptop was used to check for what’s to come.
– The less detailed chart contained no indication what so ever that there might be a huge island (with buildings on it!). I would expect at least some indication, since the chart was still somewhat detailed.

By: João Malafaia

João Malafaia — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:21:55 +0000

Exception made to Vestas and SCA, all the boats went to West of the fatidic “rock”. But even SCA did their route with a safety margin to the rocks (pls, have a look on http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/dashboard/leg2.html ).
I have to assume (rules oblige) that the routing software in all the VOR boats was/is equal and the same for the electronic and paper charts.
In relation to Vestas remains the question: if all the others saw in advance and avoided the approaching rock zone, why Vestas went confidently for it?
Seems to me that the software worked for the majority, not for Vestas. Why?

By: Musigny

Musigny — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 19:37:29 +0000

Hi!
Very interesting, but I realize that I have to study more… Some of the abbreviations are not (yet) known to me, but that’s only me
Thanks for your efforts – hopefully I’ll get a bit better, in the end!
M