ITV Westcountry brings you all the action as Plymouth hosts the oldest solo ocean race in the world, the Artemis Transat.
World sailors from across the globe are attempting to cross the Atlantic and reach Boston in the fastest time possible, watch our extended aerial coverage of the start.
Devon’s Alex Bennett is competing and click to get a bird's eye view of him on his last training run with our helicopter footage
Follow Alex's LIVE PROGRESS on the ocean race and get more information from the official 2008 Artemis Transat website.
Day 2 14:00 (BST): Bennett starts his first full day on the seas in 5th place. However his boat turns directly into the wind and with little progress being made his ranking slips to 9th. In sailing this is called 'in irons' and can actually lead to a boat going backwards.
Day 1 15:50 (BST): Having set sail amongst 1000 boats out in Plymouth's harbour and with the Royal Naval frigate HMS Argyll sounding the starting gun, Alex Bennett sends his thanks to the people of Plymouth.
Scroll down for links
Related news from ITV Westcountry:
Aerial shots of the start of the Transat
On board Fujifilm with Alex
'Plymouth will inspire ocean sailors' says Ellen
Behind the scenes onboard a racing yacht
Barbican overflowing with race fever
Yachtsman in force 9 gales training run
'Expectation high' for transat ocean race
World sailing fever hits Barbican
Sailing stars inspire youngsters
Businesses 'vital' to success of world sailing event
Star-studded gala opening for sailing competition
Celebrity chefs inspect Barbican fire damage
No speaka da sailing lingo?
Confused about monohulls? Unsure of what a jib is? Get ITV Local Westcountry’s handy guide to sailing terminology.
Monohulls a boat with a single flotation plane at rest or under sail
Open 60 single-handed boats measuring 60 feet/18.29m in length
Class40 French organisation looking after single-handed boats measuring 12.19m in length
IMOCA international organisation looking after the Open 50 and Open 60 boats
beating zigzagging upwind, sailing closehauled and coming about
close hauled sailing at about 45 degrees to the wind direction
close reach sailing at between 45 and 90 degrees to the wind direction
head up turn the boat more upwind
in irons pointing into the wind
jib small sail in front of boat
knots nautical miles per hour; 1 knot = approx 1.1 mph
mainsail big sail in back
pinching sailing at less than 45 degrees to the wind
reefing tying up the bottom of the sail to avoid being overpowered
sculling rowing the boat, i.e. by swinging the tiller back and forth
whitecaps white foamy tops on the waves caused by high winds
(from CSC Sailing)
Links:
Artemis Transat 2008 - official website
International Sailing Federation - governing body
Plymouth's Barbican - starting point and home of race village
Barbican's Jazz and Blues Festival - runs from May 3-11
WCVB Boston - online TV news from Boston
Boston Tourist Office
Boston Red Sox - home of the legendary baseball team
ITV is not responsible for the content of third party websites
RSS
Feeds
