Vendée Globe

With just 685 miles to the finish at 1000 GMT, Conrad Humphreys (Hellomoto) is holding on determinedly to his 7th place in this Vendée Globe, though both he and the French skipper Joé Seeten (Arcelor Dunkerque) are caught in the clutches of a vast anticyclone. As the figures from this morning’s rankings reveal, the duo are well and truly becalmed with a mere 2.1 knots of average boat speed over a 4 hour period for Hellomoto and a miserable 1.5 knots for Arcelor Dunkerque. Salvation is unlikely to arrive from the East before late tonight or even tomorrow morning. The first competitor to hit this E’ly air flow associated with the anticyclone will reap the benefits and may well be able to head off onto port tack towards Les Sables d’Olonne.

As a result it looks like a stressful day in store for Conrad Humphreys and Joé Seeten for this 102nd day at sea. In an attempt to position himself between the Dunkirk skipper and the mark, Conrad has been surprised by the underhand southwards shift of the mass of high pressure. In contrast, Joé Seeten, has got stuck by his desire to hang onto his latitudinal separation and his fear of lining up for the finish behind his adversary. Trying to escape the magma the duo will battle East as best they can throughout the day in the hunt for a liberating E’ly air flow forecast for the end of tonight by the weather specialists. The current ETA for the two skippers lies around Saturday evening. While Humphreys and Seeten grimace in the calms, Bruce Schwab is smiling. The American skipper is continuing to make good headway North on a rather unusual E’ly course. Just a few miles off Madeira, the wind is filling in and the downwind conditions are gradually giving way to upwind. Bruce has scraped back over 100 miles on the leader in the past 24 hours and now has a deficit of just 447 miles. The trade winds are gradually slowing the advances of Benoit Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar-Best Western) and Anne Liardet (Roxy). Anne is likely to face a few favourable lines of squalls which will enable her to accelerate a little and gain back some extra miles on her direct rival. Raphaël Dinelli (Akena Verandas) is approaching the Doldrums, a crossing which looks fairly tame prior to his passage of a windless zone tomorrow. 500 miles South of him, Karen Leibovici (Benefic) has regained a favourable VMG as she makes her way along the edge of the trade winds and escapes the influence of the Saint Helena High. Translation Kate Jennings

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