Vendée Globe

Slowed by the unfavourable wind direction, Bruce Schwab (Ocean Planet) will unfortunately not make his afternoon rendez-vous today as forecast. The American was still 122 miles off Les Sables d’Olonne at the 0400 GMT ranking this morning. Credited with a small 6.4 knots of VMG he will need a further twenty hours at this pace to cross the finish line. Patience will be the order of the day and his many supporters will have to wait another half a day to welcome him in…

Still caught up in a light NE’ly wind that is delaying backing N, Bruce finds himself with little pressure, a fear expressed in a message sent by him last night: “This COULD be my last night at sea during the Vendee Globe race. My ETA changes every 5 minutes with the shifting, capricious winds... The wind continues to blow directly from the finish, but is supposed to shift north soon. Yeah, right. We´ll see!” Given the present speed of the American skipper, an early morning finish tomorrow now seems to be on the cards, unless the wind suddenly decides to hang a violent left which doesn’t seem to be the case. Having covered 105 miles over the past 24 hours at an average of 4.4 knots...9.4 knots of instantaneous boat speed for a VMG of 6.4, Bruce indeed looks set to spend another night at sea despite already being on a latitude just below La Rochelle.

Benoît Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar/Best Western) is currently 195 miles SSE of the island of Santa Maria (Azores). He is making headway in a W to NW’ly wind under gennaker. Benoît is closing in on a small depression centre which is in the process of filling in leaving him with some light wind zones. As a result his speed is set to drop a little over the coming hours…

For Anne Liardet (Roxy), there may still be something to pull out of the bag to make up a little ground on Benoît. Anne is 440 miles behind the skipper from La Rochelle this morning and has snatched back a few miles on him overnight. She has more pressure to the SE of Max Havelaar/Best Western. Anne may be able to play the concertina effects of having more air than Ben over the coming 24 hours...on paper. She is currently less than 500 miles W of Hierro (Canaries).

Raphaël Dinelli (Akena Vérandas) has been in a similar scenario for several days as he continues to glide along towards the NNW. He is making good headway but is having trouble maintaining a good VMG. With 10.2 knots of instantaneous speed for 4.9 knots of VMG, Akena Vérandas is the furthest W of the Vendée Globe fleet. Sooner or later Raphaël is going to have to find an opportunity to make easting. For Karen Leibovici (Benefic) the days are becoming much of a muchness. She is making headway in a NNE’ly wind, forced into sailing upwind to stay on course. Currently sailing off Guinea, Karen still has another 700 miles under the influence of the NE’ly trade winds. The boat is slamming and heeled and the wind is still coming from starboard. On a positive note...the temperatures there are still nudging 30°… Translation Kate Jennings

Eléments associés

Previous news items :