Vendée Globe

The final rankings of an eventful Wednesday see Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2) leading drawing ahead of Seb Josse, (BT) by 9.9 miles. Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) is third with Mike Golding, (Ecover 3) now furthest south, in fourth at 35 miles behind.

The compression and expansion of the fleet that we saw as they entered the Indian Ocean seems to be over for now. There are now eight ‘leaders’ within 100 miles of each other, followed by three solo fighters, Yann Eliès (Generali), Marc Guillemot (Safran) and Dominique Wavre (Temenos II) at around 200 miles. Meanwhile, between the leader and the tail-ender, Norbert Sedlacek, there is now a gap equivalent to the distance between Newfoundland and Ushant…

Before tackling the funnel between the Kerguelens and Heard Island, they are going to have to deal with two wind shifts: firstly a SW'ly wind, then a NW'ly with the arrival of an occluded front. It will however be a moderate wind of 20 to 30 knots with a few squalls for the leaders. However for those chasing on behind more than 400 miles behind, the NW'ly is forecast to be violent tomorrow afternoon, while the rear will be hit by storm force winds as they dive towards the south-east. 

At the front, the routes are beginning to converge as the leaders have all decided to pass to the south of the Kerguelen Islands, leading to a compression of the fleet. Sébastien Josse (BT) moved downwind of Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2), while Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) and Mike Golding (Ecover 3) could upset things further south.  Logically, with the wind shifts ahead, we can expect a V-shaped formation.

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