Not sailing today? Checkout the live coverage of the start here:
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Or go here: http://www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com/fr/s01_home/s01p01_home.php

Can only imagine what it must be like to singlehand a monster tri like this for a few thousand miles...

Groupama 3 got a shortened mast for this race. It looks wrong on the pictures...

I bet it doesn't look wrong if you were the one planning to single hand the boat! ;-)

interesting that in le multicouques there seem to be no cats

currently the lead seems to be better thomas on sodebo and frank on groupama

idec will have to pull finger

http://routedurhum-labanquepostale.geovoile.com/2010/?lg=fr

I thought I saw a cat in the pictures but couldn't find it listed anywhere

Good to see the old school tris racing. Nanouk will be pleased!

Idec seemed to slow down between gybes yesterday evening. But is cracking along now

just spotted that St Malo 2015 is the ex Credit Agricole catamaran

the fleet is splitting early! I like Coville's line between the extremes but Frank Cammas sure is trucking at 22.5knts along the French shoreline this morning. Coville playing the middle on Sodebo making 17.8knots. Then you Gavignet on Oman taking a wild flier to the right I suppose trying to get a bite on the edge of that northern low pressure system crossing the Atlantic.

If Coville manages to time it right, he may be able to skirt through two highs in a narrow corridor of pressure.

Joyon in 3rd appears to be playing it between Coville and Cammas but I think he might have to gybe back closer to the coast on Cammas' stern to avoid that high pressure but he's not out of options by any means yet.

Gavignet on Oman Air has to take the risk of the orthodromic(sp?) route: he cannot match the raw speed of Groupama/Sodebo/Idec due to his foils. I've heard that Oman Air's sistership Sodebo is up to 3 knots faster than Oman Air in 20 knots of wind just because he has better foils!

As for the weird tracks: Bertrand Quentin on Côte d'Or II look like he turned around and Loïc Fequet on Maître Jacques seems to be almost aiming for Spain!

The only cat I know off in the race is Hervé De Carlan's Délirium. Complete amateur. He build the well named boat himself, with his son Joris, and launched it for the previous edition of the Route Du Rhum, but decided not to do the start as the boat was not ready enough. In the last 4 years he did the Jacques Vabre and the Quebec-St Malo races. Incidentally his 22yo son competes as well, in the Rhum class, on Generik Exp'hair, a boat build by the dad between '73 and '78, renovated by the son for the occasion. Needless to say, neither of those two have any chance to win anything but my respect

Cammas is putting down the miles on Groupama 3 and is making over 25 knots. He's climbed to 2nd and looks like he's in better position for the pressure they have available to them in the short term. He and maybe the two boats behind him have a chance of getting around that high pressure (anti-cyclone) before it pinches off the coastline.

Oman Air looks to be off on a flyer, but the clever money in the IMOCA fleet has gone off on that gybe too???

Imoca boats are slower than the giant cats, and the channel of wind down south is closing rapidly...

Cammas on Groupama 3 is doing a bit of a horizon job on the rest of the fleet!
http://routedurhum-labanquepostale.geovoile.com/2010/

It will be very interesting to see which of the monos will win, the majority has stayed north but the ones that have gone south are making much better progress.
It is still a long way to the finish though, anything could happen.
Anyone else stupid enough to play the RdR Virtual Regatta game? (After the VOR I though I was done with games like that but I couldnt help myself? )

I'm hoping the north route will start to payoff again for Sobedo and Oman and make this thing a fight again...right now it's a tough upwind grind for them . I still can't believe these guys are single-handing these G-class tris.

Speaking of grinding, have you seen this pic?
I think I've seen it before somewhere but still a weird looking setup...

I know that the ride on a G-class is smoother than a racing bike on the road, but I would still want a decent sized saddle!

What the hell was that flack on the front page of Sailing Anarchy about that bike/pedal trimming arrangement not being "manual power" with some inference that leg power doesn't qualify as "manual". That's crazy...that looks pretty damn "manual powered" to me!

If that seat were bigger, you're going to chafe badly...besides, I doubt he's sitting down often on that thing!

That's an apprentice sea lawyer suggesting that a rule interpretation is required to clarify if "manual power" means "human power" or "hand power".

It can only mean "human power". Proof is possible by absurd:

If only hands are allowed, no other body part can be used onboard. It is therefore prohibited to use body weight to jump a halyard, to use feet to step on a line, legs to walk, arms to brace, eyes to see, dick to pee facing back... Since this is absurd, the meaning has to be "human power". QED.

I think using the term "lawyer" is giving the nut job too much credit.

I hope to God he's OK. That Oman Air is one hell of a nice looking piece of kit too..........

Leeward float busted off and boat is on its side with broken mast too

what a mess!