Vendée Globe

THere are many different phenomena in the Southern Hemisphere, but the Peyron principle is still the same, hammer down, sail fast and keep the chasing pack behind. Gitana Eighty lead into the Southern Hemisphere, on the wind, and the fact is that the top five boats have all shown very close average VMG speeds overnight, just the way we want it.

The top three positions have remained the same overnight in the Vendée Globe with eight boats across the Equator into the Southern Hemisphere by the 0400hrs GMT poll, Loïck Peyron (Gitana Eighty) still leading by 21.2 miles from Seb Josse (BT). In third, Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2) has lost less than two miles overnight to the leading pair, but gained against fourth placed Vincent Riou (PRB) by just under five miles as the leaders pace each other upwind in the SE’ly tradewinds.

Slightly to the west of the leading pack, Mike Golding has risen two places overnight, passing Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) and Jérémie Beyou (Delta Dore) and is pressing seventh placed Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) hard, making 4.6 miles against him overnight to lie less than a mile behind. Jourdain was 11.6 miles SW of Golding this morning.

Golding passed about 55 miles east of compatriot and former Vendee Globe racer Pete Goss early this morning. Goss is en route to Melbourne via Cape Town in his replica fishing boat, retracing an historic voyage made by Cornish fishermen.

A comparatively swift crossing of the Doldrums for Dominic Wavre, SUI, (Temenos II), Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar) and Sam Davies, GBR, (ROXY) sees Thompson start to show the upwind speed of his powerful design, second quickest of the top 20 boats overnight, and fastest this morning, but this trio have lost around 17-20 miles on the leaders  overnight.

Dee Caffari, GBR, (Aviva) became the latest skipper to fall to the steady climb up the fleet of Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia). Foncia overtook Aviva overnight to lie 15^th, Caffari 8.6 miles behind in 16^th this morning.

Steve White, GBR, (Toe in the Water) is feeling the speed crunch in the Doldrums and only made an average of 5 knots overnight, but he has not suffered as much as Jonny Malbon, GBR, (Artemis II) whose overnight average is just 3.6 knots and who is making just over 1 knot this morning,

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