Well, getting across this hole is key, that's why I'm sitting her like an addict watching what's going on (on my phone, dang work internet)

I've been offline for over 24 hours on a business trip (damn hotels want too much money for internet access anymore and my per diem is whittling away!). Fortunately the auto-helm kept me in pretty good shape and now I can manipulate it through the hole at the scoring gate.

The turn I took north to just barely get around the high pressure before it saturated the area proved to be a lucky break...now if I can just get around the vacuum at the gate.

Who is Blow Boat?? Somebody let him know he's WAY off course!

I hate this game. I was doing well staying north. With the wind being what it is, I'm too far west to clear the island and have to head south east, so I can go north. I've lost 10,000 places because of that mistake. I was down around 6k, now I'm 18.5k.

Karl: You cant blame the game for missing the gate

I went up 14,000 places instantly (17k->3k).
The algorithm that calculates the position isn't very accurate below the scoring gate.

But I want to set a new course before I go to bed so I don't crash into the island before the mark while I sleep

Only 7 more months of that ahead of you. If it was run well the game is alright, however the people running it are morons. They also seem to be competing in the race. Nothing like having total control.

I decided not to get into this because I would take it too seriously and spend every minute on the site.
But I have to boast MY SON Neil "Brainwave" is lying 88th as of this moment ! Cat sailors YEA !!!!

So, did I actually have to pass the mark to port? I see some people went to the west of it. I lost about 20k places trying to get myself east to make the mark.

Note to self: look farther ahead....

He finished 35th in 2nd leg

Anybody know how to withdraw a boat? I haven't had time to even check my boat this week, and the next month or so looks about the same. I don't really want to leave my boat floating around aimlessly. If I can just pull the plug and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean, that might be better.

Finished in 672th position which I'm very pleased with, missed a lot of places at one point because I was away from a PC for too long (I will stay away from the paid options as long as possible )

IMHO the track chosen by the virtual sailors really outperformed that of the "real" boats, considering we have roughly the same polars and the exact same wind conditions.
(http://volvooceanrace.geovoile.com/)

Its interesting to see the VOR navigators sitting behind their laptops making the same hard decisions the armchair sailors take:

Erm, the virtual sailors did not have the same course restrictions; The real boats had to get to a scoring gate at 58E; we did not. This is one reason some got in first.

We also do not have the same wind situation. Our wind is set every 12 hours, the real boats have constand wind changes. We are not sailing the same race!

IMHO the VOR teams made a decision to get to the scoring gate of E58 the fastest to get points.
If they wanted to they could have sailed the exact same course we did but they would probably not get as much points since they would cross E58 later than if they sailed straight at it.
I really think that if they sailed the same course of the winning virtual boat they would be a lot closer to the finish (shorter distance sailed).
Our weather does change only every 12H but I think that cancels itself out really since we keep both the good and bad winds longer than in reallife.
(Going as far south as they did was a safer option though with all the piracy going on lately).

I had a lot of fun this race, hope the next one is just as good.

Will we have pirates boarding some of the virtual boats? That would be cool....

I think some creative writer should post a kidnap/ransom story and sail the virtual boat next to that Saudi tanker ship... It'd be world news in no time...

Jake: Are you using the autopilot? Just saw you do a 180 with the windshift

hah...yeah, I actually had things I had to do today so I put on the autopilot. Windshift, boatshift, bye bye fleet. So much for this leg.

I can't do it anymore. Too frustrating for me.

Gee Jake, I haven't touched mine since the start and it seems I'm doing fairly well!!!! What were the Zig Zags you were doing?????

Good Luck, Ryan!!!

You have to change sails quite a bit, sometimes it pays to use the jib instead of the Code-0.
To get a headstart on the weather forecasts I installed UGrib , great program for sailing in general as well (and its free).