Vendée Globe

Arnaud Boissières has been struggling with light winds and the complex weather patterns and it is not going to get any easier for him over his final miles to the finish.

It will be tough to know that four boats finished between Saturday and Monday – the equivalent to a photo finish compared to waiting for the first three boats – and there are now more boats finished than remain on the course now, but Boissières will be buoyed this morning seeing that he has less than 1000 miles of his Vendée Globe to complete. He has light winds still and is making 7.6 knots this morning, 286 miles NE of the Azores.

He was less than 600 miles behind Akena Vérandas but now Steve White has lost to 704 miles behind. SW of the Azores still, he is quicker than Boissières, making 10 knots. White is just focusing on getting finished now, but will be frustrated by an easterly detour which he took due to a road block of light winds ahead of him. He has light 10-12 knots SW'ly winds pushing Toe in the Water along.

Rich Wilson is back in the north, crossing the Equator at 0010hrs GMT yesterday morning and has not seem slowed for the Doldrums very much, even if he was complaining of his weather lot yesterday, and he has been making a steady 7-9 knots in the light NE’ly trades so far. The Great American III should have less than 3000 miles to the finish later today.

Norbert Sedlacek, AUT, (Nauticsport Kapsch) is due east of Rio this morning, in E’ly trades and still pacing Raphael Dinelli despite his damaged mast track. Dinelli is 480 miles ahead and both skippers will be enjoying the trades after suffering some brutal conditions early last week.

Dockside yesterday Dee Caffari, GBR (Aviva) playfully challenged Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar) to a re-match in 2012.

Both Brits were looking to the future yesterday as well as enjoying their finish, Thompson was just quietly delighted to have brought the boat back safely but sees the race as a stepping stone to better things next time. He was clearly struggling with his keel since the Equator virtually and was consistently have to collect leaking hydraulic oil and re-circulate it back into his working keel rams. And the final blow was breaking his keel pin which could have been terminal to his race if there had been big winds and seas. Caffari wants to roll on with a four year programme to the next Vendée Globe race looking to become better and learning more, continuing her remarkable trajectory considering she only started sailing less than 10 years ago and now has three circumnavigations and two round the world records and yesterday finished sixth in the Vendée Globe.

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