Vendée Globe

Rarely have such experienced sailors, most of whom know and are at home in the extremes of the world's oceans described so dramatically the conditions the leading Vendée Globe skippers  went through on Friday and during the night.

That reveals a lot about the hellish sea state with ten-metre high waves and breakers turning the surface into what looks like a ski-piste of spume and spray.  The five frontrunners eased off, wishing to preserve their boats as they slalom through the liquid mountains in winds gusting to sixty knots.

Rain, hail and snow squalls, an apocalyptic vision of  a furious ocean, whipped up by winds that would take the horns off a bullock, as the French say.

Seb Josse (BT) has borne the brunt of such anger, now limping north to see what repairs he can make to the British built IMOCA Open 60 owned and built by Ellen MacArthur and Mark Turner’s Cowes based Offshore Challenges. Josse was knocked flat by a huge wave and has reported damage to the deck of BT. He has picked up speed from the 3.5 knots he was making last night but has the prospect of sailing for many hours to find quieter waters to make repairs.

Josse has already acceded his coveted fourth place to Vincent Riou (PRB) and his shadow Armel Le Cléac’h who is up to fifth now on Brit Air. These two are bonded by only four miles this morning, with Riou – if anything – marginally quicker.

Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) has extended his lead by 12 miles over Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement), effectively 1.5 knots quicker over the nine hours between the overnight poll. The leading pair are running parallel tracks, Jourdain about 50 miles to the north. Desjoyeaux, into his 11^th successive day in the lead, noted this morning that he had seen squalls to 53 knots and enormous seas. He is now less than 200 miles SWW from the next security gate.

Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2) has slowed and was heading nearly due north at just five knots early this morning, and may be trying to improve on the repairs to his rudders.

Sam Davies has been racking up the miles on Roxy, making high average speeds in very favourable conditions, even reporting her own private oasis of sunshine. Meantime Marc Guillemot nears Port Ross, on the north east corner of Auckland Island where today he will stop to repair his mainsail luff track on his mast, a procedure he anticipates should cost him 6.5 hours with Safran stopped.

Steve White, GBR (Toe in the Water), has kept the foot hard down over the last 24 hours on the evergreen 10 year old Finot Conq design which already completed two circumnavigations, and sailing a creditable 367 miles, the highest average in the fleet over the last day, despite a broken goose-neck.

American Rich Wilson (Great American) sustained a cut head when he was thrown from his bunk yesterday in the violent conditions, while Raphael Dinelli (Fondation Océan Vital) has now doubled back in a course which was taking him north east. He was suffering with numerous power-related issues, as well as broken battens yesterday morning.

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