Vendée Globe: The fastest Vendée of all time?

The pace is increasing: If the Open 60s field was still lagging behind the existing record when it crossed the first major milestone, the equator, the lead at the Cape of Good Hope has already increased significantly. It took the leader Armel Le Cléac'h ("Banque Populaire") 22 days, 23 hours and 48 minutes to reach the landmark at the tip of Africa. In doing so, he beat the previous record set by Vicent Riou in 2004 by more than a day.

There is no doubt that the pace is high, which is also due to the fact that the front of the field has been engaged in a fierce speed duel for several days. The lead changed hands several times between Armel Le Cléac'h, Jean-Piere Dick ("Paprec-Virbac 3") and François Gabart ("Macif"). After around 22 days, the leading trio sailed through the ice gate just off the Cape of Good Hope, sometimes half an hour apart.

What this means for the skippers was reported by the Swiss Bernard Stamm from on board his "Cheminées Poujoulat", who is currently pushing hard on the accelerator to get back to the leading trio - which he succeeded in doing, with a gap of only 70 nautical miles to third place and only 20.

"A restless night on 'Cheminées Poujoulat'. Rough and wet. 20 to 28 knots of wind, very changeable, but it's wonderful and I'm happy. Yesterday the swell was very difficult, lots of cross seas, then suddenly a totally confused wave pattern. The boat makes some pretty impressive leaps over the waves and then crashes hard into the valleys and the next wave. The noise on board was very disturbing. But then it slowly got better. But the boat still thunders into the waves, the masses of water shoot over the deck and into the cockpit."

It will be interesting to see how the tough race for the lead will affect the equipment; at the last Vendée there was a second wave of failures when the skippers in the Southern Ocean started to push each other to the limit. Plenty of masts came from the top (Mike Golding, Loïck Peyron among others). Golding reports this morning of two heavy sun shots he put down yesterday. Now the other side of a good skipper is also required: he also needs to know when it's time to take it easy on the equipment, because not even a third of the route has been completed ...