Vendée Globe

The gulf between leader Michel Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain grows ever bigger as the Foncia skipper continues to reap the rich reward of being nearly 500 miles clean away into the NE’ly trade winds before his nearest rival has emerged from the disturbed, unpredictable airs of the Doldrums.

Asked directly at today’s radio vacations about the problem which he had dealt with which had potentially jeopardized his race, Desjoyeaux typically he only served to seed more interest but give no direct answers while he is still racing:

“ I was indeed lucky. He said, “I’ll show you that at the finish. The problem I had could have brought the race to an end for me.  I managed to get through it.  Half a second later and things would have been very different.  I’ll give you a demonstration at the finish. I had ten metre high waves and 40 knots. One night slowed down to 6 knots when I should have been doing twice that, but no one seemed to notice.  I was lucky.” 

After dealing with the Azores high pressure system which should only slow him down a little Desjoyeaux may be looking to a slingshot to Les Sables d’Olonne by typically brisk Westerly airstreams. At the current rate, he could finish between 1.5 and two days ahead of Jourdain, which would be the biggest margin since 1996-7 when Christophe Augin won by six days and 12 hours, triumphing in the last race to have an attrition rate close to that which has prevailed in this epic edition. Certainly, if the current trend continues, then  Desjoyeaux’s margin over second placed Ellen MacArthur, one day and 50 minutes would be exceeded.

While Sam Davies in fifth place is the best of the of the British skippers still in the race, but Brian Thompson, sixth on Bahrain Team Pindar, has been considering what he and his compatriots may be able to do to improve the overall standard and learn from what has proven the most successful formula this time around. Indeed Thompson is the first skipper in the fleet who does not train with the French Port La Foret training group.

“One of the differences is that we are out there sailing in 35 knots of wind and simply do much more sailing.” Explained Seb Josse, the BT skipper, speaking on today’s radio vacation. Thompson said that he has already spoken with Jonny Malbon, now back in the UK, about working together in the near future.  

Sam Davies, GBR (ROXY): “ It is really hard to tell with the weather forecasts which are not very accurate at the moment, but in general, practical terms I would not like to be very close to that coast at the moment, normally there is not much wind around and also I as go north then the wind should go round to the north east and so I’ll be able to tack on to starboard earlier than Marc, having a little better angle. But we’ll see, the weather is not behaving just exactly as it should do.

I figure he is going to have to use the land breeze effect to wriggle his way out of this front, it is really hard I have spent the last two days in that front, the same front he is in, and every time I got close, I could feel it, I could see the clouds moving in the right direction above the mast and the waves were coming in the right direction but I just never managed to get through. I think he is going to have it similar.”

Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar): “It’s nice beach weather here are 35 degrees south, it is sunny, about 10 knots of wind, and we are running downwind with the big spinnaker and full main and we’ll gybe later today and then should get some more ‘reaching’ wind which should take us up towards Rio. All is good on board.”

“ It has been very interesting since the Falklands. There has been a band of wind that I have been just in front of, just a narrow band and I just ran out of it, and Dee has managed to stay in it. It is a very narrow band. Arnaud just unfortunately dropped out of it. It was only about 150 miles wide and went all the way from the Falklands to here.”

ON the prospects for the British Open 60’s working closer together in the future: 

“ Certainly we need to. Obviously Mike (Golding) and Alex (Thomson) are at a high level, as they have shown and they have spent a lot of time in the IMOCA fleet, but the top five boats are all trained at Port La Foret, and I think that shows. And so I think that to get the fleet even stronger, then more training is essential. I have just talked to Jonny (Malbon) from the UK and he is very interested in training together, and we are all based close together so it really would not be hard. Dee is half a mile away, Alex is just next door to me, and we really need to do that. I think we work quite independently, but we could work more closely on equipment, sails and so I think that making sure that people are not going down a route that has already been tried, just things like that, and trying technologies. But, mainly just going out and sailing together, knowing the cross-overs between the sails, and pushing the boats harder. For me, my qualifier was my only sail before this Vendee and in that I need to qualify, so you tend not to push the boat unless you are racing. You have to train together to learn the limits and how hard to push, and I think that is where the French guys who really know their boats, from the training. And so, like any sport, you are only as good as the training you get.”

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