The little Breton with the grey hair and the intellectual glasses is the only ex-Vendée winner in the field and shows that he rightly bears his nickname, which Jean Le Cam gave him in the 2004 edition, when Riou chased him halfway around the world like a terrier and then overtook him in the Atlantic shortly before the finish.
In exactly the same way, Riou and his orange boat fought their way back to the leading Armel Le Cléac'h, who seemed to dominate the field. Riou took his chance in the light winds of the last few days, which favoured his featherweight "PRB". The "Banque Populaire VIII" with its foils drags more wetted surface through the water, as the hulls of the foilers are more voluminous in the foreship and the longer centreboards slow them down in light winds. Le Cléac'h's lead of just under 30 miles was thus reduced to three at four o'clock this morning. However, Riou is looking forward to the next few days with concern: "Now the foiling conditions are coming with trade winds of around 20 knots."
Brit Alex Thomson, who is sailing with a good deal of anger in his stomach, is also fervently hoping for this. He is annoyed with himself that he gave away his lead with the extreme move to the east and put himself almost 65 nautical miles behind. "It was a huge mistake," he said in the video yesterday.
But since yesterday he has been beating his "Hugo Boss" closer to "Banque Populaire VIII" again with the top speeds of all the boats; at the last update he was still 56 miles behind. Let's just hope that he doesn't overtax his boat so early in the race in his race to catch up.
The large chasing group in the west is still sailing close together with Jérémie Beyou's "Maitre Coq", Morgan Lagravière's "Safran", Paul Meilhat's "SMA" and Sébastien Josse's "Edmond de Rothschild". Less than six miles separate the group. However, the gap between them and the leaders has now grown to 45 miles. The performance of Sébastien Josse, who comes from the large "Gitana" team, which should have provided him with a top boat with almost unlimited financial possibilities, is particularly disappointing.
The biggest loser of the first few days was undoubtedly Jean-Pierre Dick with his "St. Michel-Virbac". Once sailing in the leading trio, he also paid a high price for trying to find more wind in the east off Portuagl. However, he was actually held back earlier and should have been well ahead of Alex Thomson today, but with some low speeds he has now fallen 144 nautical miles behind.
The field has also been complete again since yesterday: The Spaniard Didac Costa has restarted after having to return due to a leak.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
