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As an armchair sailor you may dream of ripping up 100 dollar notes as fast as you can, under a cold shower, deprived from sleep, doing an ice-bucket challenge every 5 minutes. For the real life thing, please sign up with folks like Bekking, Cauldrier and Fernandez.

For the next best thing we offer you to participate in this years edition of The Europe Race series, in the sailing simulator SailAway. Racing a virtual IMOCA 60 in some 40 - 800 NM oceangoing races. During the season there will be some 50+ races all around Europe. Starting October 1st 2021 and leading up to a final series in april 2022. Particpate in a minimum of 7 races to try and qualify for the finals.

We invite sailors to join us in places like Odessa (UKR), or in Klaipeda (LIT) for a series of races going from European Seaport to European Seaport to gather in Lorient (FRA) in April 2022 for the start of The Europe Race finals

The races will be conducted in 2 boat handling modes, each having their own race: Fulla Auto in races shorter than 100 miles allows you to turn on all automatic trim features SailAway has to offer, you just drive the boat. In races longer than 100 miles you just plot a course and can rest assured that your boat will continue with more efficiency in your absence, your boat can finish first even if you are away from your computer (you know... jobs, family, etc). That is..., if you have plotted a winning set of waypoints that will lead you to the finish. Being On-Line in this mode will rather be punished. In races under 100 nautical miles, your are expected to be online the whole race. Off-line is only for emergencies and will rather be penalised.

Full Manual is the mode for hard core armchair sailors that leave nothing to chance, all trimming is done manually. You prepare yourself or your team to run the simulator online 24/7 during races, cat napping on tight schedules as solo sailor or waking up your teams next crewmember to hand over the helm at the end of your watch. If keeping that boat under control with a code 0, J2 as staysail and a full main up, thundering down the waves hours on end is your thing, then this race is for you. As a safety precaution your boat will continue at 88.5 % efficiency so to not lose contact right away in case of network glitches.

For entertaining the spectators there may be non scoring short coastal races at noon of the day of the start or the races. These races are open to all SailAway e-sailors, also the ones that don't participate in The Europe Race.

With windoshifts variating from +10 to - 10 degrees from the true wind direction, on line boats can get up to a 20 ° advantage compared to off-line boats. Off-line boats do not excperience wind shifts, lulls and puffs. Neither can an off-line baot surf down waves. All in all for a fair playing field all race participants should be online or all should be off line.

• Off-line mode is dicouraged in races intended for manual and actively trimmed boats the whole race long.
• A bonus is given to off-line boats in Full Auto races longer than 100 miles intended to be sailed off-line.
• Off-line mode however is dicourages in Full Auto races shorter than 100 miles.
• By organizing many races from 20 NM - 600 NM offering there are enough races that can fit every e-sailor's schedule.
• By utilizing a rating weighed for experience ( time spend on the water) and reliability( repetitive results) skill of individual e-sailors can be compared without ever sailing against eachother

In the end a rating of your e-sailing skill is determined. Your rating does not depend on the time you spent on the water, except for a minimum nr of 7 races.

Weather you sail Full MAnual or Full Auto is up to you but rating and scoring will be separated for each of these modes. Entering a race with the wrong mode can seriously harm your rating in that mode. (when your rating is not very reliable yet) as DNF, DNS etc are scored with a finish time proportional longer than the finish time of the last boat finishing

For upcoming races check the Sail Away race tracker: sarl.ingenium.net.au

Or the SailAway homepage: sailaway.world

See also Notice of Race   Sailing Instructions