Loïck Peyron, who’s been the prince of darkness in this Vendée Globe, has not performed his usual night-time manoeuvres and for the first morning in two weeks he is showing in third, rather than first, place. However, Gitana Eighty is as far south as current leader Sébastien Josse (BT), who holds first place overnight on BT, as the pair dive down towards the high pressure zone.
Behind them there has been a small reshuffle, as Yann Elies climbs to fourth place from ninth yesterday, and is currently taking the more south-easterly line than the front three. Mike Golding (Ecover, GBR) in ninth is now right behind the front runners, and along with Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec Virbac 2) in sixth is also currently on a slightly easterly heading (153 degrees for Ecover) – more jostling for position, or is it nearly time to break for the Cape?
The answer to that question depends of course on the St Helena High, which this morning is still showing as expanding in diameter as it tracks east. The front-runners are around 600 miles from the very centre of the anticyclone, which they can expect to reach in two or three days — all currently seem to be aiming to pass to the west of the light winds zone.
For the first time this week those next in line, such as Dominque Wavre (Temenos II, SUI) and Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar, GBR), have made little inroads into the leader’s advantage. In fact you have to go back to Steve White in 7th place (Toe in the Water, GBR) before any skipper has taken more than 50 miles out of the front runners. Toe in the Water has now passed the islands of Trinidade and Martin Vaz.
Michel Desjoyeaux, meanwhile, is still storming through to the west on Foncia. Currently hitting boatspeeds of around 17-18 knots, Mich Desj’s westerly line seems to be rewarding him with some fast conditions, which he described this morning as like “hitting 40km/h in a ploughed field in a Golf with the tyres pumped right up!”. Foncia is currently around 200 miles west of the main group, and 80 miles west of Dominque Wavre in Temenos.
Bernard Stamm on Cheminées Poujoulat (SUI) has again posted the highest 24-hour distance covered, taking over 100 miles out of the leaders in the past day.