At first I thought it was a great idea – a way to sail through the worst of weather, cosy from my sofa, fire ablaze and gin in hand. But it’s kind of not like that.  So here we go with the reasons why I am not sailing in the virtual Vendee Globe any more.

• Because I have already ran aground once.  I mean how do you run aground in virtual reality?

• I keep getting blocked out by crappy media ads.

• It took me weeks and weeks just to make my boat go pink.

• I missed the start, so it wasn’t like I was ever going to win.

• Because of the wind direction I am sure you could be pretty successful just by pointing the boat in the one direction and then letting it sort itself out – with three course changes only over the many months of sailing (down, right, up) it would be interesting to see how high up the rankings you could actually get with this approach.

• It seems to be vast amounts of just sitting on the same course not really doing a lot.  I think some people do get up at random times of the night and stuff to change course – I can’t stir the enthusiasm to set the alarm just to go and drag a little arrow around by a minute amount.  I have a low attention span and I’m a bit bored now – there have been no sea monsters, pirates or having to drink your own urine – all of which I thought were part of a circumnavigation.  I had my cutlass all ready and everything.

As I can’t get in at moment (because of the crappy media ads) I am unable to withdraw, so in several years if you come across a wrecked and battered virtual boat in pink – you’ll know it’s mine…..