Yesterday evening, Alex Thomson jibed his "Hugo Boss" in the lead towards the Portuguese mainland in order to find more wind there and avoid the weak wind area approaching from the west. He was followed a little later by Jean-Pierre Dick ("St. Michel-Virbac"). The third in the leading trio, Armel le Cléac'h ("Banque Populaire VIII"), decided to continue sailing the shortest, most direct route and stay with the field. He subsequently took the lead for a short time. Almost 100 miles now separate the three formerly leading boats in an east-west direction.
At the position update this morning at 8am, Jean-Pierre Dick and Thomson were only 0.5 miles ahead of Le Cléac'h again. At the moment, the eastern route seems to be paying off: While the two leaders are still travelling at 14 knots boat speed, the field in the west is already slowing down considerably, sometimes travelling at well under 10 knots. The VMGs differ to a similar extent.
Thomson and Dick are taking a big risk, because according to the meteorologists of the regatta organisers, there is still the possibility that a small front in the west will give the field a little more wind than expected in the course of today. But so far the breakout to the east seems to be paying off.
On board the Open 60, Yann Eliès had a positive view of the action at the front: "The lighter wind favours us with the non-foiling boats. It should no longer be so easy for the leaders to get away from us!" In fact, the gap has now widened to just over 20 miles, compared to around 14 yesterday.
The best skipper on one of the older boats is still Vincent Riou with his "PRB" in fourth place. But the price for this is high, as he announced yesterday: "I used up a lot of my energy to keep up with the foilers," he reported from on board yesterday, somewhat exhausted. Apparently he really has to push his boat to 100 per cent, change sails more often and trim constantly to keep up. Not a great prospect with around 65 per cent space on the course, which should favour the foilers.
Yesterday was a painful day for Frenchman Jérémie Beyou, who shot into the wind with his "Maitre Coq" when his empty rudder suddenly folded up. "The boat luffed sharply and I fell headfirst onto a winch and broke a tooth," he reported. Let's hope that the injury is not so serious that he has to give up. With his older Open 60 (the ex-"Banque Populaire"), which has retrofitted foils, he is one of the exciting contenders in the field and is known as a tough fighter. His victory in the last Transat race, in which he beat the new foilers, has earned him a lot of respect.
Over the course of the day, meteorologists expect winds from the north-west to ease to around 8 knots and then turn to the north-east. Tomorrow, the field should then pass the Canary Islands and gradually dip into the trade winds.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
