Vendée Globe

On this 114th day of racing in the Vendée Globe, the next arrival due into Les Sables d’Olonne at the end of the week is tenth placed Benoît Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar-Best Western). He is just over 500 miles from the finish at 1500 GMT today. He passed the latitude of Cape Finisterre this morning in some very lumpy conditions, upwind in 40 knots of breeze. This final sprint home hasn’t proven easy for any of our competitors to date, Benoît the latest to suffer damage from the vagaries of the North Atlantic in the depths of winter.

After taking a real pummelling over the past couple of days, Benoît Parnaudeau has suffered some minor damage as a result of the blustery conditions with the breakage of his lazy jacks. He has also had to drop his mainsail temporarily to fix the end fitting to one of his battens and will have to repair his staysail halyard which has some considerable wear after over 23000 miles of use. “Hard, hard...and how on earth am I supposed to give an ETA in this?! I’ll be going as quickly as possible that’s for sure!” wrote a tired and frustrated Benoît this morning.

Around 400 miles back Anne Liardet is also exhausted as she battles with the strong winds and heavy seas off the Iberian peninsula. Conditions have been such that she has been forced onto a negative VMG for a large amount of the day, Anne really feeling for the boat as it jars its way up and down the steep waves. Unable to tighten up her loose rig anymore and with a continuing leak in her daggerboard casing, she has no option right now other than to simply weather out the storm for now. Anne is hoping that the wind will lift her up towards Cape Finisterre before another depression takes hold and accompanies her up to a possible finish on Saturday.

In 12th place Raphaël Dinelli (Akena Vérandas) is a little less than 1780 miles from the finish now, set to remain in a windless zone between two depressions until tonight, the future for tailender Karen Leibovici (Benefic) less optimistic. Her voice said it all at today’s radio session. 2150 miles from the finish she has been stuck fast in a ridge of high pressure North of the Cape Verde islands for the past four days, with the same thing on the menu for another four Karen revealed earlier. Given the latest position report though, things may be on the up aboard Benefic this afternoon with an average of 7.5 knots over the past 4 hours...
Author Kate Jennings

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