Who would have thought it - during the Vendée Globe, typical America's Cup vocabulary becomes relevant for the first time. Who is ahead in the first "cross", as it is called when the course lines of two opponents pass close to each other on different bows? At the moment, this is precisely the exciting question, because after Charlie Dalin was able to jibe to starboard yesterday, he is now sailing on the side with the foil intact - and immediately showed what this means for his pursuers. Last night he was by far the fastest in the field with an average speed of 20.2 knots - in some cases three knots faster than Louis Burton or Boris Herrmann.
And thus clearly won the first important "cross" ahead of Boris Herrmann. To be precise: Dalin was 71 nautical miles ahead of the German's bow this morning; "Seaexplorer" lost a good 20 miles to "Apivia" last night. Louis Burton fared no better: after being in first place at times over the weekend, he was 23 miles behind today. But the cross for Burton and Dalin was cancelled and Dalin jibed back to port this morning. He and Herrmann are currently sailing at the same speed of 19.3 knots, Louis Burton's "Bureau Vallée" is only marginally slower.
Boris Herrmann said yesterday evening in a Zoom live broadcast from on board in front of over 7200 viewers:
"It's really great that so many of you are following me! It gives me a lot of energy, courage and motivation to give it my all again. Like you, I'm pretty excited every time I update the tracker and look at the skippers' new positions. From a sailing perspective, it's particularly exciting at the moment because there are so many different strategies being pursued: Charlie Dalin is sailing further east through lighter winds on flat seas - Yannick Bestaven has tacked north and has stronger winds there. Two strong competitors. A lot can still happen. It couldn't be more exciting!"
"The route choice for the coming days is a mixture of the results of the computer programmes and the actual wind shift here on site. I'm currently sailing a fast course to avoid getting stuck in the waves and making sure I get north. We receive new weather models every twelve hours and then make further adjustments, track how the wind is shifting and where the front is. The rest is intuition and gut feeling. The end is really still very open, but so far it's going quite well for us. I'm happy with my position."
"I think the last day will be super exciting and the arrival itself too, because we will all be following the same route from the north-west - it will be a pure speed race on a 450-mile home straight. The wind will come from 120 degrees, which means full foiling and high speeds for us. We will probably enter the Bay of Biscay at full speed before the strong low that is coming up. It will be incredibly exciting and close, positions could shift. And the time credit of over 10 hours for Yannick Bestaven is of course enormous. If we sail at 20 knots, that's 80 nautical miles in four hours. So Yannick can be 80 miles behind me and still beat me."
"I struggled a lot on this Vendée Globe, I didn't really find my conditions in the south. Right now it's really great sailing and I'm actually relatively relaxed. Despite the swell, I've found an angle to the wave where the boat is travelling well. It runs smoothly and I'm automatically relaxed. It's also still quite warm and sunny compared to yesterday, but I think it's the last day I'll be sitting outside in a T-shirt for the next few months."
A nerve-wracking thriller to the finish. Although you don't really want to start, you're already doing the maths: If Herrmann doesn't manage to overtake Dalin and Burton on the water by the finish, what will his six hours or so of time credit mean for his part in saving Kevin Escoffier? The fact is: with the current speeds and distances, Herrmann would then have a good chance of winning. But what complicates the whole thing is that the wind will weaken significantly shortly before the finish - the weather forecast predicts around 11 knots in around 42 hours, no longer good foil conditions. And it only takes one wind hole to get stuck there, while the competition is coming up right and left and especially from behind with the strong wind there. So it gets even more exciting towards the end.
Behind the leading trio are Thomas Ruyant and Yannick Bestaven, who had to let go slightly over the weekend as they sometimes got caught in lighter winds than the boats in front. Ruyant is now 70 miles behind Hermann, Bestaven, for whom Boris Herrmann would have to pay around four hours, 170 nautical miles. That sounds like a pretty good cushion, but in fact nothing seems to be decided in this race until the finish line is crossed. That will probably be sometime on Wednesday in the evening or on Thursday night.
There was already good news from the race organisers: so that fans can follow the thrilling finale in the final phase in the best possible way, the race tracker will be updated every 30 minutes 200 nautical miles before the finish, and even every 5 minutes 60 miles before the finish.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
