Vendée Globe

Bruce Schwab (Ocean Planet) is 71 miles off La Coruna (Spain) this morning and 384 miles from Les Sables d’Olonne. He only has the crossing of the Bay of Biscay left to negotiate, in the knowledge that the wind has a rather nasty tendency of rounding off to the East, right on the nose of the American. Behind him, Benoît Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar/Best Western) is continuing to glide through a bolt hole bound for the Azores, 560 miles N of him, his pace slowed since last night.

The big question is whether the finish is going to be Wednesday or
Thursday for Bruce Schwab. It’s difficult to say...Ocean Planet is
greedily swallowing up the miles at the moment but the final home
straight may well prove tricky. On paper Bruce only has one good day
and a half of sailing to go this morning, but he is likely to need more
time to make Les Sables d’Olonne. In fact the American skipper will
have to tackle a NE’ly wind currently blowing across France. The blue
skies and the biting cold here leave us with no doubt that we are
encountering polar air. Under the same influence Bruce will have to
perform a series of northward tacks which will distance him temporarily
from the course. For now though, there are no other solutions for the
American skipper who is currently passing just off Cape Finisterre
(Spain) a little way off the shipping lanes. Taking all this into
account, an ETA of Thursday looks much more reasonable.

Benoît
Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar/Best Western) is currently making good headway
560 miles South of the island of Santa Maria (Azores). Though the
skipper from La Rochelle had made it into a bolt hole giving him some
favourable S’ly wind yesterday, it would seem that he has been
temporarily calmed this morning. He was making just 5.8 knots of
average boat speed over a half hour period earlier but is directly on
course with the same 5.8 knots of VMG. To get an idea of Benoît’s
position in terms of latitude, he is 980 miles WSW of Agadir (Morocco).

Anne
Liardet (Roxy) is 465 miles behind Benoît. She has lost some miles on
him overnight after coming back to within 428 miles of him. Anne is the
‘least rapid’ of the fleet having made 155 miles over a 24 hour period
at an average speed of 6.5 knots. Roxy is right in the middle of a
transition zone between the NE’ly trade winds and the Azores high, a
situation not easy to get out of. She is currently abeam of Nouadhibou,
890 miles from the Mauritanian coast.

Raphaël Dinelli (Akena
Vérandas) and Karen Leibovici (Benefic) are being pushed by the NE’ly
trade winds. 15 knots of wind is giving them upwind to close reaching
conditions. Their next target is the latitude of the Cape Verde
islands. Raphaël is 678 miles from Fogo this morning and Karen 800
miles from the same volcanic island. Since passing the equator
yesterday, Karen has made 180 miles to the North of this imaginary line.
Translation Kate Jennings

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