Following 'Boats of Interest' in the "Virtual" Clipper Around the World Race

There's the real race and the simulated race.

From the satellite rendering of the real (wet) race to the right, it appears that 11 boats are almost 50% of the way through to finishing.

In the Virtual Regatta version, 90,000 of us are approximately in the same position. There is a lot of consensus among racers as to the most optimal course: the rhumb line. It's a reaching leg with a very consistent Easterly. Boats off to a good start, like my Vigilance, are in a good position. It's my instinct to be conservative as I'm still trying to capture my first finish under 1,000 in this race. Vigilance is currently just under 350th place!

The image below this shows boats of interest I am tracking to help me evaluate Vigilance's performance.  Keep in mind that boat images sizes are hugely magnified.(Click to enlarge.)
Here is a graph of many of the same 'boats of interest' who finished in the top 5,000 which displays their evolving positions on the leader boards. (Click to expand).
 
Other boats in the legend are not to presumed to have been lost at sea. They made appearances in the top five thousand, but their subsequent plummeting from view was too ignoble to be depicted without expressed permission.

I added DaveDWiz late in the leg because I anticipated his "fall from grace with the sea". He had seemingly been permanently ensconced in position #1 on the leader board, as his course was directly at the finish line - as the crow flies. (Note the finish line as depicted by a star in the satellite map above.) But eventually, a timely westerly did not materialize - none was forecast - and he had to tack in order to fetch the eastern tip of Jamaica in order to finish.  Actually, Dave recovered much better than I had expected. I include his case not for ridicule, but for instruction: leader board positions always stand to be trumped by boat location.

Happily, my Vigilance managed to finish in the top 1,000 (353rd), but her location was not sufficiently to windward to prevail over boats she led on the leader board. Plus, her skipper is always chicken about running aground. Many boats were lost rounding Jamaica.

Of our group, the top four finishers were Hirilonde (4th), Marie Brunet (35th), Polya (261st) and Amil Sar (296th). Congratulations to them (especially) and to all who finish (eventually)!