Vendée Globe

A solid lead for Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac) looks to be established as the fleet leaders prepare for a bigger storm which should challenge them with winds in excess of 40 knots. While he doubled his overnight lead last night – despite having to back up several times to clear week off his rudder and keel – Dick’s gain on Golding is of the order of 10 miles today.

It was as if there was a Sunday treat for the pace-makers for their record breaking endeavours and continued punishment for those nearer the back of the fleet who have been battered and bruised by successive systems forcing 45-55 knot winds upon them.

While Rich Wilson, USA (Great American III), sailing in 40 knots,  reported a beating in 45-50-60 knots of wind over a 16 hours period, but the barograph was dropping again on his well travelled Open 60 and he was awaiting another,  while today some 2000 miles to the east, Golding and Dick reported what might otherwise have been a lazy Sunday in the Indian Ocean, 15-20 knots of westerly breeze and sunshine. 

British skipper Golding today paid tribute to the race the Nicois frontrunner has sailed so far, as well as admitting he has tried to slightly reduce the keel cant he has been using while preliminary discussions as to what might have happened to Dominique Wavre’s carbon keel head. Of the last two days of intense tough sailing he confirmed his new personal speed record on any Open 60 of 32 knots.

Suffering from failed rudder bearings Bernard Stamm, SUI, (Cheminées Poujoulat) has arrived in the Bay of Morbihan and was being hampered in the process of mooring up to temporary moorings laid for him by strong winds and the onset of nightfall.

Racing does remain tight among the current second tier group, even if their margin has been stretched from the leader. Vincent Riou (PRB) and Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) are just seven miles apart, while there is just 22 miles between Yann Eliès (Generali) and Armel Le Cléach (Brit Air).

Riou reported that his injured ankle is still compromising him, also remarking that the amount of ice which has been reported further north, which worries the 2004 race winner most.

The PRB skipper said today: " It's the ice, which worries me most.  Even if we haven't seen any, those further south must have been close as Mich and Sam saw some much further north.  It's incredible the difference from the first Vendée Globe races.  We see icebergs 10° further north than back then.  Even to the south of Australia, where the organisers put in place a gate for another reason, icebergs have been spotted at 51°30 and they're not coming from the Weddell and Ross Seas.  In my opinion, it's going to be pretty bad in the Pacific too”

Leading French Polar scientists have agreed that global warming is only one possible reason why there is so much ice around: 

Yves Frenot, Assistant Director of the French Polar Institute. «Scientists agree that today global warming is only one hypothesis in the possible increase in the number of icebergs, with temperatures varying from –30 °in the winter to –60° in the summer, so a few degrees extra are in theory negligible in this matter.»

Pascal Salas, a specialist researcher on the Antarctic at the CNRM (National Weather Research Centre), shares this opinion: «Yves is right. The only area where global warming is a possible cause in the production of icebergs is in the Antarctic peninsula opposite Tierra del Fuego (Cape Horn, editor). Elsewhere, we can see simply that some zones are more susceptible to ice breaking off, such as the Ronne ice bank in the Weddell and Ross Seas. There can be icebergs as big as Corsica, but let's not forget that if the sea temperature warms up, they also melt more quickly, as they gradually move northwards.» 

Mike Golding, GBR (Ecover 3): “It is very good, a very nice day. Sunshine, blue skies beautiful sunshine – 15-16 knots of wind. It is very pleasant.”

“It have been pretty tough downwind sailing, mostly under reacher and reefed main, and so just working the reefs, reef in reef out, ballast in ballast out, just lots of repetitive work and some very fast sailing, the wave patterns were perfectly suited to some pretty fast sailing and I made my best speed over the last couple of days, 32 knots, so that is a record for me for an Open 60. And last night for a sustained period, I think my average for the hour was 23 knots, so that is pretty fast by any stretch of the imagination.”

On Wavre breaking keel head (Ecover 3 is Owen Clarke design too): 

“Obviously we are looking at that. That is being discussed at the moment. Our keel is displaying no problems. It is one of those things that is ‘in discussion’ and so it is very sad for Dominique, I am very sorry he has had to pull out of the race. I am very surprised he has had to pull out of the race with something where the brief was so  very clear. Obviously I was aware of what the brief was, and the brief was to make a strong keel which was capable of completing the VendéeGlobe. So I am pretty surprised he is out the race, and I am sure they are working hard to analyse what has gone wrong.”

“There are obviously a number of factors here: there is the engineering, the construction, the geometry inside of the boat, there is the method of the rams, the relieving and accumulator systems. There are a lot of different factors and so it is not a case of if one thing breaks another thing is going, it is not cut and dried. The reality is I have been running a couple of days, just while they are analysing it, with 90% keel – well 80% last night – just taking the pressure of it while we work out what our options are.”

“ I have to say that Jean-Pierre is sailing a fantastic race, he does always seem to be pointing in the right direction with the right sails up, which is pretty impressive. He can be very pleased with how he is doing.”

Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2): This morning I got caught up with a lot of seaweed. I ran into the patch at high speed.  It got everywhere.  Around the rudders and keel…  I had to go backwards four or five times to get rid of it. The weed seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Anyway, I managed to extend my lead over Golding, which is good.  But I don't know how long I can keep pushing like this. Having said that, I don't really think I have taken too many risks and I'm remaining within limits that are acceptable to the boat.

Vincent Riou (PRB):

“ My foot is still handicapping me.  I had to go out on the bow to hoist some sail and I rested on it.  I'm going to have to be careful, if I don't want things to get worse again. I'm still limping and it hurts if I rest on it.  So when the others were under spinnaker, I made do with the reacher.  By the end of the day I will have lost 10 or 15 miles.  We're waiting for another low to move in tomorrow with 45 knot winds. "

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