Vendée Globe

The Vendée Globe leaders now negotiating the uncertainties of the Doldrums, some 440 miles north of The Equator, with the leading, compact group of five less than 50 miles apart after 10 days of racing, but overall the 26 strong fleet of Open 60’s is now strung over 2,100 miles of the north Atlantic. This is what you call a real round the world race.

At the front in the sticky, difficult heat of the Doldrums Loick Peyron, (Gitana Eighty) holds the lead which he first earned six days ago.

The only skipper to have broken his monopoly during that period, Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) admitted today that he had suffered an auto-pilot problem yesterday which had halted his progress for more than four hours, trouble which compounded his losses as he suffered returning from the eastern flank of the leading group.
 

Le Cam has now dropped to ninth on the current rankings, 93.3 miles off Peyron’s pace, and only averaged 4.6 knots in the four hours between the two position reports./

Peyron has slowed as he leads into the softer, more random breezes of the Doldrums and the average net gain to the trio behind – Seb Josse (BT), Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2) and Armel le Cléac’h (Brit Air) is four miles. Vincent Riou (PRB) the Vendée Globe holder, has gained seven miles and lies fifth, while Yann Elies (Generali) has risen two places as has Mike Golding, GBR, (Ecover 3) who returns to his best placing of the race so far, 7th.

Behind the leading group of ten the almost inevitable advance of Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) continues. He passed the Cape Verde islands early today 100 miles to the west in good breeze,  just over 400 miles from the leaders.

Also playing catch up, Bernard Stamm, SUI, (Chéminees Poujoulat) was 240 miles SWW of the Canary Islands, Derek Hatfield, CAN, (Algimouss Spirit of Canada) is off Madeira, and Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty, who re-started last, is now 300 miles SWW of Cape Finisterre, heading on a westerly track.

Jean Le Cam, FRA, (VM Matériaux), 8th, + 93.3 miles: “Yesterday (Tuesday) I had a problem with my automatic pilot.  I hove to for four or five hours to carry out repairs.  I have four automatic pilots with me. I tried them one by one, and they all had the same problem. I can assure you that I was really angry for four hours. Being parked up doing zero knots, trying to find what wasn't working, while everyone else was sailing away at ten knots, psychologically, is not easy to accept.  Let's just say that it was a good character-building exercise.  Anyway, now everything is working perfectly again.”


Mike Golding, GBR, (ECOVER 3): 7th + 86.5 miles: “ The main thing is that I have moved myself over to the right hand side of the fleet and I am pretty happy with that and now we are just trying get ourselves south because and get on with whatever is going to come because none of the models are agreeing, and it is not very clear as to what or how badly we are going to be affected as we move south. Some models show us keeping moving and others show us stopping, it is very tricky.  I think it will slow down, I think the boats on the left will slow down more. Bilou lost a lot of miles to get right, but I think he might do alright and make a gain, it is quite possible the fleet could rotate around the left, but more interesting is the way that things are developing in the south, and in five or six days we are going to have some interesting decisions to make.”

Steve White, GBR, (Toe in the Water), 17th, +387.1 miles:  “ I am cooking in my own juices, absolutely boiling. Blue skies, blue seas, hardly a cloud in the skies. We have had the same sails up for a while now, main, spinnaker and sometimes a stay-sail depending on the angles, and we have been hitting 17-18 knots at times, and down to 11-12 knots because the wind is up and down. It has been a little bit alarming at times because I have had problems with a dodgy autopilot which is a bit alarming when you are going along at 17-18 knots.”

“ I count my blessings every single day that something does not let us down. I was talking last night with Mark the electi and he was saying that I am probably the only person in the fleet with nine years old course computers to the autopilot  and instrument systems, and that is a credit to B&G that they are still working, because nobody has nine years old instruments systems, but the thing is that I have a problem with those then things could change very, very rapidly, so I just count my blessings. I am just grateful for every day that comes.”


Dr Richard Lapchick, USA, (Chair of Sports Management at the Central University of Florida), renowned authority on anti discrimination, gender issues, conflict resolution and social and cultural diversity: speaking to Rich Wilson on the Radio Vacs in Paris.
“I just wanted to express my appreciation for what you are doing with school children, and the fantastic mission that you have in addition to the sailing to help educate children.”

Rich Wilson, USA, skipper of Great American III,: 21st +560 miles:
“ We try to excite kids and let them find their own paths, so if I can show them things or maybe expose them to things out here that they would not otherwise see,  then the will maybe get interested in something, As well we have team of experts back working on the web site, five doctors in Boston, a professor from MIT, the head of Maritime Affairs of the US Government, and so on, and so we are not trying to saay you have to learn how to sail, what we are saying is find what it is you love and go after that.”

Andi Robertson 
 

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