Vendée Globe

Michel Desjoyeaux has been in the fast lane since December 16, but it looks like the speed limit has just been reduced… Last night Foncia and Veolia Environment were slowed by a ridge of high pressure, and the two pairs of boats which have been fighting to stay with him are now hitting the accelerator hard whilst they still can.

Racing on a near-parallel track, the third and fourth-placed duo of Sébastien Josse (BT) and Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) have gained 50 and 75 miles respectively. Earlier this week Seb Josse spoke about how he wanted a tactical battle, rather than a pure speed contest, and with this new weather development he seems to have got it. But that’s not to say that Seb is sailing slowly — in this evening’s update (16h GMT) BT is sailing at 19.4 knots. "I should be less than 100 miles away from Foncia in 24 hours", reported Sébastien
to his team today.

The fifth and sixth pair of Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) and Vincent Riou (PRB) have also been standing on the throttle — Le Cléac’h is maintaining a 24-hour average of over 430 miles and has taken 118 miles out of Foncia’s lead in the past day.

Things will soon change again, however, thanks to a thundery low-pressure area coming down from Auckland: this low is generating moderate northerlies, which will back SW'ly and strengthen to 35 knots with some very strong gusts. This new front will particularly affect the leaders Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) and Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement).

Throughout the fleet more pairings continue to duel — after getting caught in an area of high pressure both Sam Davies (Roxy, GBR) and Marc Guillemot (Safran) have picked up new pressure and are now north of the East Australian Gate. Behind them Dee Caffari (Aviva, GBR) and Arnaud Boissieres (Akena Vérandas) have traded places, with Caffari dropping to 12th, but just 14 miles separates the two. Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar, GBR) is now 81 miles ahead, having lost over 360 miles of advantage December 20 while repairing his bulkhead sections.

News from dry land, and Yann Eliès came out of the operating theatre at the Royal Perth Hospital earlier today. He came around from the anaesthetic and is reported to be feeling fine. Vendée Globe race doctor, Jean-Yves Chauve confirmed: “Yann was operated on to have a pin fitted to his femur, as planned. Examinations found that his ribs were not fractured.”

Mike Golding is also making steady progress home on the dismasted Ecover 3, and this morning was about 190 miles from Western Australia. They are currently due in Freemantle late on Christmas Day (local time).

From this morning’s radio broadcasts:

-8th Sam Davies, Roxy (GBR): After a night of no wind – and I think probably my slowest average of the whole race – it’s nice to find the wind again. But it was a beautiful clear night, and I’m not sure but I think I saw a little tiny bit of the Southern lights, I saw this funny bit of moving lit-up cloud. I have an astrologer friend, and I’m going to ask him what it was!
I’ve found lots of presents all over the boat and I’ve collected them all. Also my boyfriend has prepared me a Christmas dinner, which I’m going to have on the 24th – which will be a bit of a challenge, because we’re going to be reaching in a 30-knot forecast, which will probably be 40 knots with big waves — so it’s going to be like eating Christmas dinner on a rollercoaster!
There’s a low pressure system not far behind me, and the wind’s almost north-east so we’re going to be reaching, almost upwind. I think the faster I go now the less bad it’s going to be because I’m going to try and run away from it a bit, but for sure the next 24-48 hours are going to be a pretty bumpy ride on Roxy, already the cockpit is filling up with water and the drysuit is compulsory on deck now. I might be wearing my Christmas dinner more than eating it!

-15th Rich Wilson, Great American III (USA): There’s another front coming through about now, we’ve got 30-35 knots of wind and we’re surging to 18.5 knots. I think we’ll be rolling up the staysail quite soon. I think we’re going to slow down a little bit, by choice, just trying not to push things too much. We had a pilot error earlier in the afternoon and we don’t want to stress it too much till we get confidence back in that.
I’ve been trying to find the freeze-dried turkey and I’ve certainly been making a larger number of phonecalls to friends, but it turns out on Christmas Day I’ll be just about exactly on the opposite side of the planet from Boston, in latitude and longitude, about as far away as I could possibly get, and I don’t like being this far away from family and friends.

-18th Norbert Sedlacek, Nauticsport Kapsch (AUT): It’s a beautiful day, yesterday we were waiting for stormy weather, but now the situation has changed and it’s a chance to repair equipment which has been stressed for the last two days. It should be the same tomorrow, but in one and a half or two days there will come another low pressure system. The situation is good for the soul, but not so good for the miles at the moment!
Today I’m starting to make some Christmas decorations for the navigation area, and I’m very happy about tomorrow – it will be a great day for eating, and drinking, and opening all the parcels! I have a few cans of turkey, and a lot of sweets and typical Austrian food, so tomorrow it will be like a little Austrian island on the boat!
 

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