Vendée Globe

While the three leaders are under 100 miles from the Cape Verde islands, the ten frontrunners are already wondering how they will tackle the volcanic islands, which  the trade winds, which are already rather weak and benign… It will be in the middle of tonight that the leaders will unfold their gains and losses.  

Inside, outside?  Through the middle or around them?  To the east or west? 

The Cape Verde islands block the route to the Equator and whilst it will be this afternoon that the strategic choice is revealed, the decision will have been ruminated upon for a while, based on experience, the latest weather charts, and even the punishment inflicted upon Marc Guillemot in the Canaries.

Getting stuck for hours on end more than 100 kilometres from an island that is only 3200 m in altitude, while the trade wind was blowing above twenty knots, Safran just proves that the disturbed patterns in the wind shadow can stretch out a long way leeward of the island.

A desert and tropical landscape

The Cape Verde islands stretch out for some distance as they include ten major islands, spread over 150 miles in latitude and almost 200 miles in longitude. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1456, these volcanic peaks rise to up to 2829 metres on the island of Fogo, one of the southernmost.  With its dry tropical climate and dry or even desert soil, there is a large temperature range between day and night, which leads to thermal breezes, which upset even more the trade winds, especially when they are light, as they are forecast for the coming days…

 A thundery low-pressure area, which has established itself a long way off the Canaries is leading to a huge change in the weather: the NE'ly trade winds are down to twelve knots around Cape Verde or even less to the south of the Canaries. Moreover, little low pressure cells lie ahead in the path of the sailors and the Doldrums are fairly high up in latitude and stretch a long way out, both in latitude (12° to 6° north) and in longitude (from Sierra Leone to 30° west).  According to the weather charts, while there will be a little more breeze to the east of the islands tonight, there are then calms ahead to the south east of the islands. On the other hand, to the west, the wind is lighter, but looks more stable almost down to 10° north near the entrance to the Doldrums…

 If you have any doubts…

There are clearly no certainties about how the Doldrums will be evolving as the leaders start to tackle them Monday evening… that is if they have made it unscathed through the islands!  For the moment, the three leaders (Peyron, Josse, Le Cam) appear to be intending to leave Santo Antao and San Nicolau to starboard, almost certainly with the idea of gybing after that to head off west to avoid the disturbances off the island of Fogo.  Another solution would be to gybe after this afternoon's rankings at 15h GMT or maybe wait until the 19h GMT scheds to hide what they are doing until the last moment… In order to hide their game-plan from those chasing after, who have been left some 73 miles behind (Dick) or more than 100 miles in the case of the others, which represents practically half a day's sailing.  They would be following a route towards the west on a tack that is not very favourable to go to at least 27° west before changing course to head south.

Further upwind, Jean Le Cam can still change course to go windward of the islands (Sal, Boa Vista, Maio), as he did by tackling Madeira from the east… He would then gybe at least fifty miles south of the islands. This would be a risky strategy at this stage of the race.  The slow down should benefit those chasing on behind, in particular  the group including Riou, Le Cléac’h, Eliès, Jourdain, Golding and Beyou, who have the option still of heading out west before reaching the islands, if they see the three leaders getting bogged down in a calm. As for Wavre, White and Desjoyeaux, their route way out in the Atlantic suggests that they will be sailing a long way from these islands to avoid all the dangers. That is not the case for Guillemot, Boissières and Caffari, who will have to sail much further leeward, or gybe like Akena Vérandas did yesterday evening. The start of the week therefore looks like being a key moment in establishing the order and deciding where they will enter the Doldrums: Last time the skippers went into this zone in the Transat Jacques Vabre in 2007, Loïck Peyron lost all he had won by trying to cut straight through close to the coast of  Africa, while Michel Desjoyeaux hit the jackpot by heading much further out to sea to around 27° west…

Dominic Bourgeois

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