Vendée Globe

Yes, there are constant themes to this Vendée Globe. Some are regular, day to day, déjà vu. Been here before. Saturday night, the leader board has changed little.

Tonight’ simple premise is the consistency to Michel Desjoyeaux, working relentlessly to pull a few miles on Roland Jourdain in tough, difficult conditions.

Desjoyeaux has gained steadily since the pair lined up on the same tack early yesterday and now leads tonight by the best part of 75 miles from Bilou on Veolia Environnement, making over two knots quicker this evening.

But sometimes this race stops you short, delivering jarring themes which seem fated in their timing and their cruelty.

For some the pursuit of the Vendee Globe must seem like a personal haunting: Bernard Stamm out of the race again, Mike Golding in Fremantle with a broken mast to name but two skippers who have suffered more than most.

Golding, of course, had only lead for a few short hours before his mast came down. Stamm had worked so hard to get back into contention before his rudder bearings failed, and has never yet completed even two of the Great Capes in a Vendee Globe.

Now four years on and it is Seb Josse who tonight has been in the wars, a strange synchronicity with the same week in 2004.

Josse hit a growler on 23^rd December 2004 and three days later had just repaired his misaligned rudders. Four years on tonight it is Josse  - who had sailed a masterful race to date - who is nursing the hobbled BT north in the knowledge that he, again, has to find  way to make his rudders line up, as well as fixing his deck if he is to carry on. How cruel is it that he is the skipper who has been most vocal about how he has been pacing himself and sailing prudently.

For all his renowned cerebral intensity Michel Desjoyeaux knows two things as well as any other skipper: no lead is untenable until the finish line is crossed, and you are only ever seconds from failure in this race.

Mich Desj nearly lost on the way back up the Atlantic. His 2000-1 victory was jeopardised twice – once by mechanical failure when the starter motor on his generator failed. He lead by over 500 miles at Cape Horn in 2000, when his nearest rival was – as it is now – Roland Jourdain, who went on to be struck by mast track problems.

Desjoyeaux fixed his generator issue by cleverly running the mainsheet down below, wrapping it round a drum on a hand crank to fire it to life. His lead of over 640 miles was swallowed in the South Atlantic and the Doldrums when Ellen MacArthur became the first woman ever to lead a single-handed round the world race.

So if there were an unspoken vow of consolidation and preservation between these two leaders over the next seven days until they round Cape Horn it would be entirely understandable, not least because Vendée Globe history is among the cruellest in any sport, and has a habit of repeating itself.

Sunday 26th December  2004  Less than 10,000 miles to go for the leader, Jean le Cam
Sébastien Josse back in the race after hitting a growler on 23rd, which threw his rudders out of alignment

Monday 27th December 2004 Jean-Pierre Dick and Sébastien Josse continue with the repairs to their rudders

Tuesday 28th December 2004  At the front, Jean Le Cam increases his lead

Friday 31st December 2004  Marc Thiercelin in a bay in New Zealand announces he is abandoning the race.
A violent storm with 60-knot winds batters Sébastien Josse and Dominique Wavre.

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