At the top, the great trembling now begins: Yannick Bestaven is trying to squeeze past the ice limit with his "Maître Coq IV" by the skin of his teeth, while an area of high pressure is moving in from the north-west, slowly turning the wind away from him. The weather models are predicting a wafer-thin wind corridor between the ice limit and the high's flat core - and skippers have already reported several times that the models deep down south are nowhere near as accurate as those further north. At the moment, it looks as if Bestaven's plan could work out, which in turn could cause Charlie Dalin on "Apivia" and Thomas Ruyant on his "LinkedOut" a few headaches. Just under 100 and 165 nautical miles behind Bestaven respectively, they have to fear the scenario that Bestaven will just make it around the high pressure, but they will be caught up in the high pressure and will be stranded. This would mean that Bestaven could pull away further.
The 47-year-old from La Rochelle is certainly the big surprise of this Vendée, his boat speed, the toughness with which he took the lead in the rough conditions in the Indian Ocean, while Boris Herrmann, with whom he was still on a par at the St Helena High, had to let go. Bestaven also had some technical problems: he had to deal with a tear in his headsail in the Indian Ocean by acrobatically climbing up the mast under sail. Bestaven is considered a tough dog, whose Vendée Globe dreams were shattered in 2008 when he lost his mast shortly after the start in the Bay of Biscay. He then switched to the Class 40 and became one of the top skippers there. He won two transats and recommended himself for an Open 60 campaign. When the sponsor Maître Coq was looking for a skipper for his team, his time had come. Bestaven is also the founder of Watt & Sea, a company that manufactures hydro generators to produce electricity. 95 per cent of the Vendée Globe participants use these.
If the leader could actually pull away over the next few days, that would be the worst-case scenario for Charlie Dalin and Thomas Ruyant, especially as the entire chasing pack would then come up from astern and could sail through a little to the north of them. A weather routing by the Vendée Globe meteorologists predicted that the first eight boats could sail within 100 nautical miles of each other on Saturday - a first-class Christmas thriller that has never been seen before. At no other edition of the Vendée Globe have so many boats been so close to the lead. And that also means that it could remain highly dramatic right up to the finish.
Boris Herrmann is already benefiting from the high ahead of him and has already been able to get within 300 miles of the leaders. He and Jean Le Cam have already set a more northerly course in order to sail around the high that will soon be in their way. However, this will give them a headwind and an unpleasant cross for the holidays. The German has comfortably taken the lead of the chasing pack, but his most persistent pursuer remains Jean Le Cam. The 61-year-old is still sailing his boat extremely effectively; he is less than 50 miles behind Herrmann and is therefore still the best non-foiler in the field. The German-French Isabelle Joschke is still in 8th place with her "MACSF", sailing very consistently and recently catching up well with the two non-foilers sailing ahead of her.
Video weather analysis by Malizia team member Will Harris
Things are also exciting behind them. Louis Burton, who drifted behind Macquarie Island yesterday for a repair stop in the wind cover, has fallen back almost 400 nautical miles as a result. Now he is squeezing everything out of his fit-again "Bureau Vallée 2" to keep up with the weather system in which the leaders are sailing. If he succeeds, he will be caught by the storm front of a depression with winds of around 40 knots in two days' time. But the Frenchman had already said in the Indian Ocean that nothing was too hard for him.
Clarisse Crémer ("Banque Populaire X") and Romain Attanasio ("Pure Best Western"), who are sailing behind, even eased off the throttle a little yesterday to avoid sailing fully into the storm. This in turn played into the hands of Armel Le Tripon, who is making huge strides from astern with his "L'Occitane en Provence" and is now sailing just 380 nautical miles behind Attanasio. In the last 24 hours alone, he has taken almost 100 nautical miles from Attanasio. So the Sam Manuard design with the scow bow is flying just right.
All in all: the perfect suspense scenario for a Christmas party in an otherwise quiet lockdown!
Will Harris weather analysis
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
