The Vendée Globe single handed round the world yacht race takes skippers into barren and unfrequented areas of the planet. Often, the IMOCA 60 foot yachts travel through areas of the ocean which are largely unexplored and outside the common trade routes. Therefore, in the 2020-21 Vendée Globe, 13 of the 33 skippers chose to deploy scientific instruments into these remote areas. The ‘Drifting Buoys’ and ‘Argo Floats’ were positioned at specific co-ordinates in the Atlantic Ocean. Going forward, both of these devices will be used to improve our understanding of the ocean and to gather key climatological information.
For example, the ‘Argo Floats’ are used to monitor sea water and can aid in predicting certain types of weather phenomena. The ‘Drifting Buoys’ will be used to accumulate climatological data, producing crucial information about atmospheric pressure. The benefit of deploying these buoys was immediately felt by competitors, who could plot their course using the additional data provided by the instruments. Not only this, but both the Argo Floats and the Drifting Buoys will prove a great advantage to analysing and understanding the health of our oceans in the future.
The primary disadvantage of these devices was the additional weight on board the IMOCA yachts. Any surplus weight can ultimately alter the speed of the boat and impact its performance. For this reason, the participating skippers took part in a lottery which determined where their instruments would be deployed. The French competitor Alexia Barrier (TSE-4MYPLANET) was tasked with deploying the final drifting buoy in the Southern Indian Ocean. Click here for the link to see Boris Herrmann deploy an Argo Float from his yacht on day 10 of the race. For more information on how this device works, click here.
The 2020-21 Vendée Globe is only the beginning of the partnership signed between UNESCO and IMOCA back in January 2020. This partnership aims to increase protection of the ocean and to fill in the gaps of our scientific knowledge. We cannot wait to see more of this collaboration in the next 2 years of their partnership.
Author : Darcy Hedley
