Vendée Globe: "I would put my money on Alex"

In an interview with the French newspaper "Le Télégramme", two-time Vendée Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux commented on the current fight between the two leaders. Both had their strong and weak moments, explained the Frenchman. Thomson had shown a great performance during the passage of the Cape Verde Islands and later also made some very strong decisions in the Southern Ocean at the edge of the ice edge. However, he missed a good opportunity off the coast of Argentina: "On my weather models on the computer, he would now be ahead if he had made the right decision there!"

Although Desjoyeaux believes that Armel Le Cléac'h has shown the better performance overall, especially in the Pacific, he thinks it is conceivable that Alex Thomson could still overtake the leader by the finish. "A very complicated North Atlantic awaits Armel. When I ran the data through the computer, the three leading boats finished within twelve hours of each other!" A comeback is certainly possible, especially as almost the entire route will be sailed on port tack, which still has an intact foil on the Thomson. And he has proven that his Open 60 is fast. When asked who he would back to win, Desjoyeaux said: "I'm a gambler, I would bet on Thomson!"

At the moment, the Briton has stalked the leader to within 77 nautical miles, but Le Cléac'h will also escape the Doldrums earlier today and make up miles. The pendulum had already swung back in favour of "Banque Populaire VIII" at 9 o'clock this morning, which was a good three knots faster at 10 knots. By tomorrow the gap is likely to increase again to 150 miles or more. But both are heading for a highly unstable weather situation. There is a large depression around Cape Verde, which is slowly dissipating and will leave behind very "patchy" wind conditions that are only likely to stabilise over the next few days - good "chances" that one of the two skippers will get caught out and park up somewhere for half a day. So it remains exciting until the finish.

Jérémie Beyou was the smiling third at the weekend, taking almost 200 miles off the two leaders with his "Maitre Coq" and closing the gap to 585 nautical miles. But now he is heading for the Doldrums and the gap is likely to increase again - the famous "rubber band effect" of the Kalmen. But overall, the weather models are predicting a much narrower band of flat wind than the 300 to 350 nautical miles that Thomson and Le Cléac'h had to cross.

Yesterday, 63-year-old Nandor Fa was the eighth skipper to pass Cape Horn with his "Spirit of Hungary", 16 days after the leader. It was the fifth rounding for the Hungarian, who has had an excellent race so far. He designed his Open 60 himself and built it with a lot of labour in Hungary.