Vendee Globe

Hells Bells, CY, just had a quick view of several skippers loading up the food etc for anything from 60 to 120ish days at sea  -- more weight than my ducky would hold it seems !  And they are fit looking so I have to agree that I will try to get a decent sized version & sail it round my bath !!

But thank you for the information I got from t' tellybox --  Gawd how the others in this world choose to dodge C19 

At least , CY, it's a sport with a solid moral basis !!

Winner finished in third , I think, but was promoted to first because he surrendered his lead to divert and save another competitor who was in serious life threatening danger.

Truly I can't think of footballers with that moral framework !!

Quite agree ABM. I feel sorry for poor old Alex Thompson. He doesn't have much luck with the Vendee Globe. Last time he lost out on the win due to damage to one of his foils and this time the boat started developing structural fractures in the carbon fibre forcing an early retirement whilst in the lead. Maybe they are building it a bit too light. The Southern Ocean is a rough old place.

I mostly agree with your post Brian. The winner was given over 10 hours back due to lost time.

There are footballers out there doing great charity work. Marcus Rashford is a headline but others beavering away, mostly in their own locality. And one only has to look at that Wolves manager, Portuguese but donating £250,000 to local Wolverhampton charities to those in need. They are an easy lot to knock and there are indeed some that deserve taking down a peg or two but it's been nice to see some good publicity shone on them recently, and I'm not even a football fan.

Congrats though to Yannick Bestaven for winning. I remember eating out in Les Sables d'Olonne whilst on holiday one year. I just happened to know the name of the latest winner and his name cropped up in conversation with a waiter. We were given a free carafe of wine. They're sailing mad down there.

My weekend sports section of the Times has, as ever, umpteen pages devoted to football with a couple of pages for everything else. Even a major race like the Vendee Globe had no mention at all except for a paragraph about the unselfish actions of the winner. The Americas Cup and its qualifying series has received scant cover as well.

Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only vonce. We are not all obsessed with football and don't even regard the game as beautiful.