If anyone can do it, it's Jean Le Cam! The fleet has experienced an exciting split on its way south: while the majority of the field has chosen a westerly course, Jean Le Cam and Conrad Colman ("MS Amlin") have sought their fortune on the easterly track closer to the coast. With interim success: in the early morning of 16 November, the Frenchman initially took the lead on "Tout commence en Finistèrre - Armor-Lux" and pushed the previous leader Giancarlo Pedote, who was sailing around 220 nautical miles to the west of him, into second place.
The experienced fox in the field stole the show for the moment with his non-foiler designed by David Raison. In the past, 65-year-old Jean Le Cam, the youngest Imoca in the Vendée Globe fleet, has often proved to be a fan of the direct route.
Around 420 nautical miles west of Jean Le Cam, co-favourite Thomas Ruyant was heading towards the equator on the westernmost outer flank on "Vulnerable". However, Ruyant is currently "paying" for this position in 29th place and must regard it as an investment for better times. Boris Herrmann also dropped back overnight, but was recently able to work his way back up to 13th place around 310 nautical miles west of Jean Le Cam.
The other face of the Vendée Globe
At the same time, Le Cam has recently been heading more westwards himself, apparently looking for the "wind bridge" back to the field in the patchy Atlantic. It was not only Ruyant's interim position at the bottom of the field in the Atlantic doldrums at the 7 o'clock update that was a rarity. The co-favourites Charlie Dalin ("Macif Santé Prevoyance") and Jérémie Beyou ("Charal") also only found themselves in 25th and 26th place after the complicated sixth Vendée Globe night.
Like Charlie Dalin, some of them had stopped during the night. The runner-up of the ninth Vendée Globe took stock at sea, saying: "Overall, it's a slightly easier mission than the one four years ago. Four years ago, we had two pretty heavy fronts and a tropical storm. Now something like that is clearly no longer on the programme! I'm glad that I can do this circumnavigation again with this new boat, which is very well adapted to the course."
Charlie Dalin continued: "I was really surprised by the comfort of the boat at high speed in the downwind phases. Sometimes I woke up, opened my eyes and said to myself: 'The boat has stopped, I'm not going fast enough', when I was travelling at 20 to 25 knots. Which is pretty cool! It's tight in the fleet, I don't have Thomas Ruyant far away. I'm side by side with Jérémie and Louis, Yoann is also close by. And we're trying to get away!"
Just get out of the "sticky stuff"
Charlie Dalin also described what it feels like in the light conditions: "At the moment I'm in the light winds. In the west here, it's too late to change my mind! We'll try to get through this sticky stuff as quickly as possible over the next few hours before we leave this zone and find speed again to cross the Doldrums."
The fleet is "very mixed", said the 40-year-old skipper. And continued: "They are coming from behind like four years ago, I hope it won't be like this all the time! The field stretched out at the start and regrouped near Madeira. There was some movement there and I caught up with them. Now the fleet has moved together again, everyone is close together. The field is good, at least there's a fight, and that will only make it all the better going forward! The challenge really is to get out of this zone quickly."
Charlie Dalin recently reported a very thin 0.5 to 1.5 knots of wind. "That's really weak. So I hope it starts soon on our side and compared to the others, not so much on the south-east side! Normally we should have this phase behind us by now, but that's clearly not the case!" The game of sailing chess in the sometimes very light Atlantic winds - and with it blatant changes in position - will continue for the time being.
This is what doldrums chess in the Atlantic feels like - a clip by Boris Herrmann from day 5:
