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Which
route is best across the Atlantic?
Weather
router Jean-Yves Bernot talks tactics
Youngest
competitor learns the ropes
All
the weather links you need for an Atlantic crossing!
Roger
Badham talks routing
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View the solo transatlantic
race on your computer!
Software gives you virtual cockpit access to all
the action
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View
all the details of the north Atlantic, from evolving weather systems to
positions of all the boats in Class One.
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The first Transatlantic race was raced in 1960. It was won by Sir Francis
Chichester and it took him 40 days, 12 hours and 30 seconds to reach
Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Race followers saw pictures of Chichester
starting and finishing but for more than a month he was 'off-air'. Today,
technology has changed everything.
This year the big multihulls are out to smash the current record of 10 days,
9 hours and 15 seconds and the extreme Open 60 monohulls are out to beat
their record of 14 days and 6 hours. And VirtualSpectator will change the
way that followers can live the race, track the boats and judge their
tactical calls.
Sailing fans on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond will be able to track
the progress of competitiors in the Europe 1 New Man STAR (single-handed
transatlantic race) using an award-winning 3D animation program created for
the America's Cup and the Whitbread Round the World Race.
From the relative calm of living rooms or offices, using VirtualSpectator,
fans and race followers will be able to track the progress of the skippers
who will be heading into the vagaries of the North Atlantic, surviving on
10-minute catnaps, dodging icebergs and pushing themselves and their grand
prix racing machines to the limit and beyond in the race to reach the finish
line in Newport first.
The race, which starts on Sunday 4 June 2000, takes competitors from
the
start in Plymouth, England, 2810-miles across the north Atlantic to Newport,
USA. VirtualSpectator will track the 19 monohulls and 7 multihulls in
Class
1, with an animation, text and graphical interface in English and French.
Virtual Spectator has a pedigree at the top level of international sailing:
during the Louis Vuitton and America's Cups Virtual Spectator transformed
the way sailing fans from around the world were able to follow the racing in
Auckland and more than 300,000 people from more than 100 countries enjoyed
the interactive experience of watching live 3D animated America's Cup action
over the Internet.
But the America's Cup was just one model: the inshore model. In May of 2000
Virtual Spectator moved into ocean sailing with the development of a new
interface, tested when Steve Fossett sailed his 105-foot catamaran
PlayStation across the Atlantic from New York to The Lizard.
And now, VirtualSpectator brings you the Europe 1 New Man Star like you have
never seen it before. Live, internet racing with commentary, emails from the
boats and weather overviews. After a short download and the associated
software registration - which will be free of charge for the first 50,000
users - viewers will be able to experience the event from a completely
different perspective; it's the closest you can get to racing without the
backing of a major sponsor.
VirtualSpectator will download the fleet positions four times a day,
transforms those positions and the incoming GRIB weather files into a
fully-interactive 3D animation of the Europe 1 New Man STAR race. Viewers
can choose their virtual camera position, follow the fleet or just their
favourite boat and rewind or fast forward the action to date. A full text
and weather commentary will also highlight the decisions skippers are facing
and options they have. There will be no-one better placed to judge the
tactical calls than the VirtualSpectator follows ashore.
The 3.5mb interface can be downloaded from the Internet via a link to
http://www.virtualspectator.com
from the official event website,
http://www.europe1newmanstar.com.
Each time the viewer goes on-line, Virtual
Spectator will automatically update the positioning data for each boat.
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