Vendée Globe

The evening and night are looking tricky for Dominique Wavre (Temenos) and Sébastien Josse (VMI). Behind the cold front that has just passed over them, the tail is particularly active with squally showers and hailstorms and the northerly wind could reach 40 knots. They look like receiving the worst treatment of all those left in the race for the next 24 hours. For the moment, Temenos is regularly increasing her lead over VMI, who was 55 miles astern in the 10 a.m. rankings, in comparison with 42 earlier this morning.

The cold air coming down from Iceland will be generating heavy or even very heavy seas off Cape Finisterre, with troughs of 4-6 metres. One final battering to get through before the two skippers reach home late on Monday.
“This northerly-north westerly flow will ease off tomorrow and back south easterly in the Bay of Biscay. In so doing an area of calms will develop and the time of arrival will depend largely on this,” warned Sylvain Mondon of Météo France. So Wavre and Josse really have two goals: they must not break anything in the heavy seas tonight, while making headway as well as possible to enter the Bay of Biscay, where the wind will be kinder to them, backing south easterly and falling off to 15-20 knots on Sunday evening.

On a north westerly bearing off the Canaries, Jean-Pierre Dick (Virbac-Paprec) is getting in position to get around or cross through the Azores high, which is coming down to a lower latitude. Will Jean-Pierre pass to the west of the Azores or will he be able to cut through the ridge of high pressure to pick up the north westerly coming along behind that bit sooner. It’s still too early to say. We shall see on Monday or Tuesday how the high develops. Meanwhile, Virbac-Paprec is continuing to achieve good speeds (13 knots) on her climb back up the North Atlantic, even if the VMG is relatively low, currently around 4.5 knots.

Joé Seeten (Arcelor Dunkerque), who was being chased by Conrad Humphries (Hellomoto) for some time, was finally caught and overtaken this morning, but his suffering may have come to an end. The further north they get, the stronger the north easterly trade wind, with a steady 25-30 knot wind. This is ideal for Joé, who has to make do without his solent, but the rough seas with 3-3.5 metre troughs will put the boats under strain again. As he approaches the Doldrums, the American Bruce Schwab (Ocean Planet) is hoping to zoom through just like his two predecessors.
“The Doldrums are quite active, which means there is some wind, but also a lot of squalls,” explained Sylvain Mondon.
The moderate winds should allow him through without being held up, thus avoiding too many squalls. It’s a question of luck. It’s all down to a few miles.”

Less than 200 miles from the coast of Brazil, Benoît Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar Best Western) is likely to suffer for another 48 hours. The trade winds are still unreliable following the stormy low he experienced. The easterly wind will be light and variable, swinging around by 90°.

24° further south, Anne Liardet (Roxy) is on the right side of the high, but is being caught by it. Her position is however preferable to Raphaël Dinelli’s (Akena Verandas), who is entering the heart of the high. Raphaël is likely to have two tough days trying to get out of this wind hole. That is offering a helping hand to Karen Leibovici (Benefic), who has some wind, enabling her to get up there with her nearest opponent. However, she will also face the trap of this high-pressure area. It’s once again the squeeze box going in, before it comes out once again.

NicolasR

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