For fans of the Vendée Globe, it's a godsend: two complex areas of high pressure positioned in the path of the competitors have created a tactically challenging situation over the last few days, which has now resulted in eight boats starting the Southern Ocean practically within striking distance of each other. Even in the last race, where there were ten more competitors at the start, it was not as exciting.
The big winner of the weather lottery was the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Dick with his "Paprec-Virbac 3". His south-westerly route gave him almost two days of ideal space-sheet conditions, and he sailed 456 nautical miles, the best time of the entire field. "It's like being on a magic carpet. Not good weather down here, just typical for the deep south. But I like these waters, it's very wild, but also very beautiful. The boat is eating up the miles and soon I'll have overtaken Thomson and Stamm. The exciting question will be where Armel will be afterwards," he emailed from on board.
In second place, he is only 55 nautical miles behind the leader Armel Le Cléac'h ("Banque Populaire"). Less than 20 miles behind is François Gabart ("Macif", currently with the highest boat speed of 21.5 knots. Both are significantly faster than Le Cléac'h and it will be interesting to see what will be left of his lead at the end of the day.
Behind the leading French trio, the Swiss Bernard Stamm ("Cheminées Poujoulat") and Alex Thomson ("Hugo Boss") are also well in the race, separated by only a mile towards the finish, but they are sailing over one and a half degrees of longitude apart. However, Thomson is currently travelling much faster at almost 20 kts boat speed.
It was also pleasing to see that the chasing pack of older boats (... and skippers) were able to close the gap, which at times had grown to well over 300 miles. Jean Le Cam ("Synerciel") is sailing 200 nautical miles behind, Mike Golding ("Gamesa") is now 50 miles behind. The Brit opted for a slightly more northerly route than the Frenchman, is slower and now has to make sure that the Swiss Dominique Wavre ("Temenos") doesn't slip through his grasp in the south. Golding and Le Cam are regarded as fast skippers in the rough conditions of the Southern Ocean. Golding even took the lead for a while at the last Vendée before the mast came from above. Perhaps the two can use their routine to get closer to the front.
In a day or two, however, the high-speed race will take a break, as the field will be caught up by a high pressure system moving eastwards. However, no one will be able to avoid the southern latitudes, as ice fields drifting very far north led the organisers to move the first ice gate further north.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
