Particularly as the trade winds are there for the leader, who is once again the fastest in the fleet averaging 15 knots in an easterly wind.  Even if the forecasts show him slowing down as he reaches a ridge of high pressure, once he has passed the Azores, he can look forward to westerlies from an Atlantic low.  He is now expected to arrive in Les Sables sometime between Saturday morning and Sunday evening.  While he may be giving up hope of grabbing first place, at least Roland Jourdain, can feel more and more comfortable about finishing second ahead of Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) who is so far behind (500 miles) and has less favourable weather. 

Perhaps the main concern now for Joutrdain is making sure his mast bulkhead repairs hold out in these heavy seas.  The man from Morlaix (Armel Le Cléac’h) is however still under threat from Marc Guillemot: even if he is some 950 miles behind as we must not forget his redress.  The skipper of Safran has a bonus of 71 hours more than his rival.  At the moment this is not enough, but the Doldrums could see an upset and then there is the Azores high and the Bay of Biscay.  In short, there are a lot of unpredictable elements that could see a change in the rankings…

For Samantha Davies (Roxy) there is a different challenge as with her redress of 32 hours she would like to finish in under  90 days, which would mean she was close to Vincent Riou’s time from 2004 plus two and a half days, which corresponds to the 1160 miles extra in this sixth Vendée Globe