The 3rd leg of the Volvo Ocean Race round-the-world yacht race started today. They left Melbourne, Australia for Wellington, New Zealand. You can see other details about the race and Google Earth network link in my earlier stories here and here. Or you can just download the network link 
now and see the history of the previous three legs and watch the LIVE race in Google Earth right now. You might want to load the current global clouds as well.
You also might want to install the excellent official free 3D application – Virtual Spectator = for watching the race with more detailed information and excellent 3D rendering of the boats, their wake, sail changes, the weather, night and day, and the weather conditions. It runs on Windows 98 and up.
Sailing
Transatlantic Sailing Adventure Using Google Earth
Three men in Brazil decided to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a 40 foot long sailboat (monohull) named “Mussulo”. The reason is apparently based on at least one of them having always dreamed of returning to Angola, a country he had left 30 years ago. They chose to take full advantage of Google Earth both to allow people to follow the trip, and to provide and anaylyze weather data. They have been using amateur radio for communication, and I presume GPS for navigation. Most significantly, Mussulo completed the journey to Angola and they have begun the trip back to Brazil.
The crew of Mussulo have been posting updates to the Google Earth Community (in both Portuguese and English translations). The Google Earth file they have posted not only provides the track and weather information, but also shows placemarks with “log” entries (also in both Portuguese and English – make sure you scroll down to see the English). The file is a network link so it automatically updates when they provide new entries.
The crew of Mussulo have…
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Volvo Ocean Race Leg 2
Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race (an around the world sailing yacht race) began on January 2nd. You can get the details about the race and Google Earth network link in my earlier stories here and here. Or you can just download the network link now.
By the way, two of the boats have turned back to South Africa due to damage near the start of leg 2. Team Ericsson stopped racing and turned back with a failure of one keel actuating ram, and then Brasil 1 turned back with structural failure in the region of the cockpit. These boats are very powerful, but the southern ocean is very menacing. The boats have to be very careful in these dangerous seas, winds, and ice. In order to win, you have to finish! The two boats returning may be able to effect repairs and return to the race.
Back on Land
Just returned from my sailboat delivery from Annapolis, Maryland to Vero Beach Florida. It was an awesome trip and I will give some more details later this week. Unfortunately, I won’t have a detailed GPS track due to an unexpected glitch, but I will be able to show a track in Google Earth from our logs when I get it converted. And, I will share some photos as well.
Tomorrow I will begin catching up on my backlog of E-mails and news stories. Sorry for the delay, but we had little access to the Internet while out at sea!
Gone Sailing! Passage Plan in Google Earth
Today I am leaving to help deliver a beautiful Voyage 440 catamaran (same make and model as my old boat PatiCat) from Maryland down to Vero Beach Florida. As a result, please be patient if you send me E-mail as I will have almost no Internet connectivity for the next several days. Don’t worry though, I have already written a few stories for GEB, one for each day of the week, which will be published first thing each morning.
You can see the approximate passage we have planned in Google Earth. We will come down the Chesapeake, go out to the ocean around Cape Haterras and down the coast to Florida. We have to stay kind of close to the coast to avoid going into the north-moving Gulf Stream. Zoom in and you will see we have to go past our destination to the Ft. Pierce Inlet in Florida due to bridges which are too short for our mast to go under if we were to take the northern Sebastian Inlet. Our total passage is about 860 nautical miles and will take about 5 – 6 days in this boat.
Those of you who have been following my writings will probably guess I’m pretty excited about this. And you would be right! Also, I plan to write a story when we get back with our actual GPS track in GE and include some georeferenced photos as well. What fun!