Vendée Globe

In the light of a forecast of more than 40 knots of wind tomorrow and his need to have a four or five days window of favourable weather, Roland Jourdain’s Vendée Globe has come to a sad and all too premature end, bitterly frustrating for a hugely likeable skipper who has contributed everything he has to this race.

Who can forget the images sent of his sheer enjoyment and mischievous fun, dressing up as Father Christmas with a beard fashioned from white net and a pirate’s eye patch? But he has been the one skipper this race who has really had the capacity and drive to push Desjoyeaux for so long. As many skippers said today, he deserved better than to have his race ended with less than 1300 miles to sail. Jourdain reached the Sao Miguel safely haven this afternoon.

As a result of Bilou’s retirement the ebullient Brit Sam Davies (Roxy) has moved into third place in the rankings. Today she seemed both pleased and bemused to see that Marc Guillemot was not following the same course as her to the finish the race. Guillemot has taken the westerly option, one final strategic play. The Azores high is a long way west from its normal position, meaning a long period of upwind sailing if the shortest route is taken.

But the high could easily move to the centre of the Atlantic in the middle of the week, which would dramatically change the situation. Davies could find herself in the middle of a zone of light, variable winds, while her French rival would benefit from a moderate Sw’ly flow enabling him to pick up the lows further north. The result of this stage should be seen Wednesday evening, when the two sailors have reached the latitude of the Canaries.

If the weather patterns follow this trend, that could also allow Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar) to take a short cut across. There is the possibility of an interesting option developing via the east with upwind sailing to head north-eastwards to pick up a SW’ly airstream at the latitude of Gibraltar right up to Cape Finisterre.

So perhaps Davies needs to watch both her flanks. It is not certain however that Dee Caffari (Aviva) will be able to take advantage of a similar situation.  These rapid changes in the weather patterns in the Atlantic suggest that Thompson’s potential route through via the east may not remain open long enough to allow her through too.

While Dee has made it out of the Doldrums, Arnaud Boissières is only just entering.  For the moment the skipper of Akéna Vérandas has not been slowed too much, but the ITCZ is fairly unstable.  Another day and a half to reach the Equator… As for Steve White (Toe in the water), he is still suffering in the weak trade winds off Brazil. He has made it out of the thundery area, where he was forced to tack for several days.

For the American, Rich Wilson, the climb back up the South Atlantic is not proving to be any easier: he has picked up some wind off Uruguay, but Great American III is facing headwinds. Raphaël Dinelli (Fondation Océan Vital) has fulfilled a large part of his challenge : sailing around the world without using fossil fuels.  For the third time, he rounded the Horn in fairly rough sea conditions.  The passage through the Southern Ocean with just solar panels and a wind generator to produce electricity is one of the biggest challenges of his round the world race.   

As he begins his climb back up this afternoon, this concern will be less of a worry… Norbert Sedlacek (Nauticsport-Kapsch) has been taken prisoner in some calms, with less than 300 miles to go to the HornHe is going to have to wait until Tuesday when he can hope to benefit from a low moving in to allow him to leave the Pacific behind.

I was forced to take my decision essentially because of the weather, as from this evening, the north-westerly wind is set to strengthen to 35-40 knots, as the front passes over and it will remain at gale force for the next few days with occasionally up to 50 knots. I’ve been through 35- 40 over the past few days and that’s fine, but if I have to go all the way up to La Coruna, I’d have the wind on my beam and the boat cannot cope with heavy seas.  If there had been normal conditions, it may have been possible.  It was a tough decision, but I’d regret for the rest of my life if I didn’t stop and then 24 or 48 hours later, something happened and someone else risked their life getting out to me or if I had to abandon my boat.  So this is a sensible decision taken by a wise sailor you might say.  I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye again, if something stupid happened after passing the Azores, knowing that I could have stopped and knowing there was bad weather to come. I took this decision within the past 24 hours.  I thought before I would be a bit luckier. I hoped this would be the final low before  a 20-25 knot westerly took me to the finish.  But gradually, the weather charts began to indicate bad weather. Above all it is the sea state: as the lows continue to pass over, the swell builds. They’re talking about a ten-metre swell to the west of the Azores.  Already in seven yesterday it was hairy... There are times when you need to separate racing from good seamanship and safety for the sailor and his boat and indeed others. So that nobody needs to risk their skin coming to get me, this was the sensible decision. I waited too because I didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere for Mich. I waited until the last moment to decide.  Maybe I was hoping for my miracle too.

Dee Caffari, GBR (Aviva): “ It is so sad, he was putting on such a brave effort to sail without a keel, I feel for him he has worked so hard throughout the race. You know I was really frustrated for 48 hours just giving up miles to the others, hour by hour, as they were all racing away, but at the end of the day now it is about getting the boat back to the finish line  and we can just see that anything can happen. And it is just about nursing Aviva to the finish line.”

“It has been so frustrating, I struggle anyway with the boat not going anywhere, but it is kind of made worse watching all the others sailing away from you, who you have worked really hard to catch up with already, and then you watch them all sail away . But I did make it into the Northern Hemisphere before Foncia reached the finish line, so there was a little glimmer of light among my depression.”

“It has filled in to 20 knots and so I have a reef in and ballast in and am getting used to sailing back upwind again which is pretty uncomfortable, but I am just not going to complain after the last few days that I have had.”

“It was horrible for the mainsail because with no wind and a swell, then the mainsail has just been flapping back and forwards and I did not know it is was going to survive, because behind me I was just leaving a trail of mylar like confetti as it was peeling off the sail. And I was thinking ‘Oh this is just the worst thing for the sail.’

I am just hoping she will survive upwind, the sections now are too big to do a repair on so it if dies on me I will have to come up with something.”

Sam Davies, GBR, (Roxy) “I am busy with wind at 8 knots to 32 knots with wind in lots of different directions.”

On Jourdain: “I was kind of hoping that he is going to make it because it would just be such a great story, but we are seamen and seamanship is very important to us, and our boats are valuable not just to us. I could never imagine a situation risking to lose Roxy. And so I guess Bilou had to weigh up the risks that he was taking, that he could possibly lose his boat by taking a risk to try to get to Les Sables d’Olonne.

And I was looking at the weather and was looking for some calm-ish conditions for him to make the dash, but the weather is not particularly kind at the moment for my approaches, and for sure it is going to be pretty full on, and so I figured that he would have a long wait in the Azores, if he was going to try and make it to France.

We are going up to the high pressure, I am enjoying the fact that we are close together and it makes a nice race, but theoretically he is two days ahead of me. I am not pushing everything out to just get in front of him, not taking any risks.

It is complicated because we have to get around the Azores High and my point of view is that my quickest way round is to leave to port, to the east and it looks like Marco thoughts are to go round to the west. To me it seems like a long, long way, a long detour to have to do and the best winds to be in the east even if they are upwind. I am wondering if he is making that decision because of that sailplan that he has got left and that he has only got two reefs, he might be looking for the downwind conditions as quickly as possible, get his big gennakers up, and get Safran going as fast as possible as quickly as possible.”

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