Sailonline.org - Vasco da Gama Ocean Race 2021

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23 May 2021

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PARABÉNS NagaJolokia!!!
PARABÉNS nacrr!! GRATULACJE WRmirekd!
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Sailonline is not unfamiliar with sailing around the coast of South Africa, but it was with delight that we accepted an invitation from Point Yacht Club to create a virtual partner race for the 2021 Vasco da Gama Ocean Race. The race was intended to be run in tandem with the real event but, the ever-fickle wind gods decided to mix it up in such a way that Sailonline’s race started at the original start time, but the real fleet had to delay their start. However, with tides/currents in play for the real fleet, it wasn’t long before the leaders were catching up and overtaking some of the slower virtual racers on this year’s course along South Africa’s wild coast from Durban to Port Elizabeth. Another first for Sailonline was the inclusion of a Google Earth Guided Tour downloadable introducing racers to points of interest on land and at sea. Thank you Point YC for introducing Sailonline to a truly fun race and we are already looking forward to the next one.

The Sailonline race saw considerable interest from local racers, with a large participation of 63 boats flying South African flags in the total virtual fleet of 185, representing 30 nations. The race was challenging with headwinds all the way and a visible “wind shadow” nearer the coast tempting many to head for the longer offshore route to the finish, clearly visible in the below Timelapse video of the race. The Facebook page for the real race (linked here ) has a wealth of information about the race and the results indicated that the tides and currents of the area truly came in to play to ensure that the winner, on corrected time, arrived in East London in only 38h 3m 55s, beating Sailonline’s virtual winner by 7h 38m 34s!

Many congratulations must go to our podium three from some excellent racing – again from the timelapse you can see that the choice of inshore/offshore routing made not as much difference as you might have thought. All three arrived within 2m 28s of each other and narrowly ahead of a truly competitive fleet – well done!

Timelapse by calmxy

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