Vendée Globe

Experience is telling at the front of the Vendée Globe pack on, and among those chasing too.Over five days in and if the young guns are not exactly wilting under the pressure, there were a few prepared to at least pay their respects to the old hands.

With the Canaries astern and sighting 500 miles down the track to the Cape Verde Islands, Peyron’s lead on Gitana Eighty is 26.4 miles tonight with Le Cam (VM Matériaux), who was the only one of the leading five to go east of Madeira, still holding in there in second, but the new standings show Peyron speeding up again.

Ecover 3 rises to ninth and is still gaining on Brian Thompson, GBR, on Bahrain Team Pindar, making a further 16.4 miles on this sched.

To the east, inshore, Rich Wilson, USA, (Great American III), the elder statesman of this race is moving up through the gears too, advancing on Unai Basurko, ESP, (Pakea Bizkaia) who remains closest to the Moroccan coast. They are 21^st and 22^nd respectively and both reported today that they are enjoying good sailing.

Wilson reported:

"I found that I couldn't carry the sail that I thought I should be able to carry, because the pilot couldn't hold the boat if it started to broach. Thus we were giving away speed. After much reading in the manual, and a consultation with our electronics advisor ashore, I made two adjustments. Both seemed improvements, and I went back into the program and changed the two settings again. We have more speed now, and more potential speed, so we'll see in the next day or so if I can catch up a bit.  The hoisting of the main is very painful for my back, so I have to be very careful"

Derek Hatfield, CAN, (Algimouss Spirit of Canada) has had a solid first day back on the race track, making 170 miles since he started very early this morning, on the early tide in Les Sables d’Olonne.

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