Vendée Globe

While Les Sables d’Olonne is ready to give a huge, warm welcome to Sam Davies this bitterly cold St Valentine’s morning, the clock is ticking all the time for Marc Guillemot who now needs to finish by 02:41:01 GMT on Monday morning to clinch third place.

Davies has been enjoying time aboard her Roxy with friends and family since finishing at 00:41.01hrs GMT last night, a spectacular finish is a moderate NE’ly wind which saw her working to the last minutes to keep her historic Open 60, winner of the last two races, at best speed until she crossed the finish line. As expected, she was jubilant as she crossed the line, her pink, polka dotted Roxy lit up by a barrage of flash guns and spotlights.

Meantime the race is still very much on for Guillemot who has every chance of taking third away from her, but at current speeds and against contrary easterly winds it will be very close. Between the overnight position reports he was made a net 4.3 knots of speed towards the finish line and had just over 248 miles to sail to Les Sables d’Olonne in around 47.5 hours. The constant light headwinds will require him to make several tacks to get to the line.

Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar) has been making nearly twice the speed of Safran and looks set to pass Guillemot today. He has Dee Caffari, GBR, (Aviva) some 65 miles behind him and is in the same easterly breezes as Guillemot, while Caffari is banking on a more northerly routing. Thompson has 289 miles to finish and was 40 miles behind Guillemot. Caffari is the quickest of the leading three on the water.

Arnaud Boissières is in better breeze again making 9.7 knots early this morning and is some 300 miles to the Azores, while Steve White is slightly quicker and looking to a more westerly routing on Toe in the Water.

Rich Wilson, USA, (Great American III) was working the inshore line just 25 miles off the Brasilian coast in light E’ly trades, making 11 knots. Raphael Dinelli (Fondation Océan Vital) is in upwind conditions with 20-25 knots of wind, making 8.3 knots while Norbert Sedlacek, AUT, (Nauticsport-Kapsch) is negotiating a band of lighter winds, making 8.8 knots.

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