Regatta: Vendée Globe: Ruyant plays high poker

The fans were probably left breathless yesterday when Thomas Ruyant tacked away from the two leaders for the third time in this race and suddenly slowed down again. Did he have another technical problem after his water ingress yesterday and the foil damage at the start of the race? But the all-clear came a little later: he was obviously trying to sail further north than Yannick Bestaven and Charlie Dalin, but in his attempt he probably got stuck in the doldrums and tacked back again. A manoeuvre that cost him second place, but he is now sailing further north than the two, a tactic that may pay off in the long term.

Competitor Charlie Dalin commented from on board his "Apivia" that he had also considered the option yesterday, but then rejected it: "For it to work, I would have had to sail the boat extremely close to the upper limit of the polar data. That seemed too risky to me.

Ruyant's poker has already cost him plenty of miles, he lost his second place and is now almost 100 miles behind Charlie Dalin. Meanwhile, Yannick Bestaven is sailing away with a 100-mile lead and is the smiling third. However, he is now in the doldrums at the front and Charlie Dalin has already closed the gap to 79 nautical miles. "Apivia" is travelling at almost 12 knots more boat speed this afternoon. It will be interesting to see how this weather poker turns out.

Behind him in the chasing group is Boris Herrmann in fifth place, who was not quite able to match Jean Le Cam's speed yesterday. Louis Burton's "Bureau Vallée 2" is also in the group. The Frenchman announced that he intends to anchor at the small island of Macquarie. "The track of my mainsail is damaged, and my J2, I need to get in the mast to fix it." The plan is to anchor for around five hours in the wind and swell shadow of the island, which is around 200 metres high. Then he wants to have the repairs done and get back on course. He hopes to reach Macquarie tomorrow. Burton can only sail with the first reef in the main and has lost a lot of ground in the last week after being in an excellent third place for a long time.