The AG2R transat was cancelled … but still starts today!

The transat AG2R is one of the main off-shore sailing events of the calendar. Since 1992, each 2 years, duos of skippers race from France to the Caribbean islands on “Figaro” class boats. Almost 4 000 miles with exactly the same chance of winning for each team as all the boats are strictly identical.

This year, the race should have started today 19th April from Concarneau, a lovely small port of Brittany, in France. The race was planned to stop at Las Palmas, in the Canary islands, before starting the second leg of the race to join Le Marin in Martinique.

But the race had to be cancelled because of the coronavirus lockdown.

Cancelled? Well, maybe not completely :-) There is still a way to follow up this race and even participate through the virtual games that have been built around off-shore racing. The most well-known is Virtual-Regatta (https://www.virtualregatta.com/en/offshore-game). The one I prefer is VLM (https://www.v-l-m.org/jvlm/). I’ll make a full review of these 2 games in a future post. They really deserve it.

The degree of maturity of these games are now such that all real skippers of the race, locked down in France, have decided to participate in the race with Virtual-Regatta. They will use the navigation tools that they use on their boats and will race in the same spirit as if they were on the water. And the good news is that you can compete directly with them!

So, will you be able to beat them? Interesting question no? :-) I will personally race on VLM and will be delighted to compete here with you. Let’s meet in 4000 miles at Le Marin! :-)he transat AG2R is one of the main off-shore sailing events of the calendar. Since 1992, each 2 years, duos of skippers race from France to the Caribbean islands on “Figaro” class boats. Almost 4 000 miles with exactly the same chance of winning for each team as all the boats are strictly identical.

This year, the race should have started today 19th April from Concarneau, a lovely small port of Brittany, in France. The race was planned to stop at Las Palmas, in the Canary islands, before starting the second leg of the race to join Le Marin in Martinique.

But the race had to be cancelled because of the coronavirus lockdown.

Cancelled? Well, maybe not completely :-) There is still a way to follow up this race and even participate through the virtual games that have been built around off-shore racing. The most well-known is Virtual-Regatta (https://www.virtualregatta.com/en/offshore-game). The one I prefer is VLM (https://www.v-l-m.org/jvlm/). I’ll make a full review of these 2 games in a future post. They really deserve it.

The degree of maturity of these games are now such that all real skippers of the race, locked down in France, have decided to participate in the race with Virtual-Regatta. They will use the navigation tools that they use on their boats and will race in the same spirit as if they were on the water. And the good news is that you can compete directly with them!

So, will you be able to beat them? Interesting question no? :-) I will personally race on VLM and will be delighted to compete here with you. Let’s meet in 4000 miles at Le Marin! :-)