You can tell at first glance that the "Hugo Boss" is a radical boat: She is the narrowest in the field, has the longest foils and an extremely light bow section that is cut like a knife with sloping decks. And since Thomson has been sailing off the coast of Portugal with rage in his stomach over his tactical error, he has been squeezing everything out of his boat to finally realise his dream of winning the title at the fourth attempt. And the figures that he delivers are awe-inspiring: for hours on end, he is sailing through the trade winds towards Cape Verde at almost 22 knots, while the competition is travelling a whole three knots slower.
Alex Thomson live from aboard yesterday afternoon:
In the last 24 hours, he sailed from eighth to second place, taking an incredible 34 nautical miles from second-placed Vincent Riou and 20 from leader Armel Le Cléac'h. Such speed differences are worlds apart in a regatta.
Thomson sails the only one of the brand-new foilers that the superior French competition finds difficult to assess: He never took part in the Open 60 skippers' training sessions off La Foret, which they use to make each other fast. Instead, he relied on the team's own designers for the foils and parts of the hull when fine-tuning his boat in order to gain a speed advantage. As if he had suspected something, Armel Le Cléac'h said before the start that the "Hugo Boss" was the only boat that he could not estimate in terms of performance.
Last video summary of the Vendée, day 6
It seems that this time, on his fourth attempt, the Brit has finally hit the jackpot in terms of design. And he firmly believes that it is tactically immensely important for him to be at the forefront just before the Southern Ocean. When YACHT was on board his "Hugo Boss" shortly before the Vendée for a test sail off Sylt, he emphasised this again and again: "If you're the first to jump on the bandwagon of the low-pressure areas and only have a few hours' head start, you can sometimes get 50 or 100 miles out of it in a day. And often that's the difference between falling out of a fast-moving low or not. If you manage to put a weather system between you and the chasing pack, that's a huge advantage!"
And that is exactly what he is now fighting tooth and nail. From 65 nautical miles behind the leader, there are only 24 left, and he is still sailing at two knots higher VMG than Armel Le Cléac'h. We can only hope that he doesn't overtax his boat. Last night Thomson said: "I'm at the absolute limit in terms of sail area. The boat now demands total concentration so that I don't jibe, take a sun shot or crash too hard into a wave." He is currently sailing with gennaker number 3 and a reefed main. A tactically tricky decision follows over the next few hours: Through the Cape Verde archipelago or round the outside for fear of a slipstream. "My routing recommends the passage between the islands, 'Safran' seems to have the same plan. I don't know what Armel and Vincent are doing. 'Edmond de Rothschild' and 'Maitre Coq' will probably go round the outside."
After that, the meteorologists are predicting hardly any Doldrums in the Vendée, ideal conditions to take the lead. It will be interesting to see what the next 24 to 48 hours bring for the Brit.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
