"The mobile aviary left Bahrain Team Pindar last night at sunset, perhaps to go back to Gough Island. Now just passing a few birds on our route, and they do not stay for long, they have fish to catch. But what we have lost in birds, we have gained in waves, all shapes and sizes, some breaking, some not, big rollers and little sideslappers, and all of them cold to the touch. They have been formed by the 35 knot tail winds that are pushing us eastwards towards the first ice gate, now just over 100 miles away, and it’s the first Southern Ocean gale for us.
The boat is handling it really well, the bow is riding high with the gear stacked at the back and the aft water ballast filled. I have done quite a bit of steering today as the average speed is higher hand steering, but the real top speeds are always under pilot, as the pilot has no fear, and it will jump into the biggest hole if it appears in front of it, and ride it to the bottom, carving like a surfer across the face of the wave. The boat is bouncing off all the little waves and it’s a job to hold on down below when we take off on a big wave. The highest speed so far is 28.3 on the GPS.
Had a good tidy up last night to get ready for the strong winds today and in the process of stacking everything aft, I freed my bunk from storing equipment, so for the first time in 25 days I slept in something other than a bean bag. It felt good, but I won’t do it again tonight as I want to stay closer to the hatch and the instruments in case of any problems, so it’s back to the bean bag for me. "  
Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar) in his daily blog

 

Hello from Algimouss Spirit of Canada

" Pollution is today's topic, oil spills to be precise. Around 10:00 UTC this morning, white and red Algimouss Spirit of Canada sailed through a large patch of bunker oil and came out a sickly brown colour. The boat was surfing along at 15 knots or so and of course shipping a lot of water over the decks. The boat decks are now covered with sticky greasy crude oil. It's everywhere, on the ropes, line bags, deck hardware and cockpit floor. It will probably take me a day or more to clean it so it doesn't track inside the boat. A couple of days before the race start I was given a bag of Ecover cleaning solutions from Mike Golding's team, they sure will come in handy with this mess, thanks Mike. Otherwise the sailing is great and Jean-Baptiste and I are having a great drag race. He's not in sight but I know he's not far away off to my starboard side.  Now back to cleaning."

Rich Wilson says all is well as he anticipates the arrival of more wind: 

"1400z, 36/45S 11/18 W, 6094 on log so far, 11.9 kts, surges to 20 staysail and 2 reefs in the main, 25-30 kts wind, clear skies still. Trying to hover between the edge of the high and the strong gradient, to get less of the strong winds. Have hanked on storm jib in anticipation. Building seas,
albatross around at a distance. Passed to north of Tristan de Cunha group of islands. A favorite sailing author, Tristan Jones, Welshman, was born aboard a cargo ship passing by these islands, thus his first name. Sound from keel has ameliorated, must have been a bit of fairing that is now
gone. Ran desalinator this am, have full tank of fresh water. Got some sleep in real bunk last night again, delicious. Understand Unai Basurko has rudder problem, confident he'll get it fixed soon and be back pressing, noticed on 4 am classement rating that he had slowed considerably, learned later of rudder issue."

Mike Broughton,  Dee Caffari's weather trainer describes, in a little more detail, the  low pressure system which is reaching the fleet  at the moment:
‘There is a pernicious little low pressure system approaching Aviva from the north-west and is set to bring storm force winds for a few hours on Friday. A lot of people think the low pressure systems just roll eastwards in the Southern Ocean, whereas every ten days or so, a tropical low slips south in the centre of the South Atlantic.
Originating in Brazil, these low pressure systems develop on a long 'waving front', they hold a huge amount of moisture in the warm air and generate big thunder storms and gusts up to 60 knots. The system is deepening through the next 24 hours and will probably give Dee storm force winds around 'rush hour' time on Friday afternoon!’

"Writing is becoming harder, as Roxy is moving around quite a bit on the waves now!! There are around 35knots of wind and we are reaching fast in a rather rough sea - quite fun!  Last night, when the wind was at my "limit" of 27 knots I furled the big gennaker. As you can imagine, to roll away 250 square metres of Cuben Fibre in nearly 30 knots is quite a task! The law works that the windier it is, the tighter the roll, hence, the more turns you have to do! So that makes a fair amount of winding to get the thing under control. "Under Control" is perhaps not the best word to describe what is now a very slim, but very stiff "snake" that is now dangling from the masthead. The next task (I remind you that the "platform" on which we are working is FAR from stable) is to get the said "snake" into the forepeak! Ha - easy I hear you say! Well, sometimes! The only trouble is that the thing seems to have its own idea of where it is going and how it wants to descend. It is so tightly rolled that it will only bend at certain points, and at other areas it is more like a spring! It reminds me of a TV out-take of a little boy with a live eel in his hand trying to put the eel in a jar, the eel will not go in no matter how hard he tries! Last night I was that boy, the gennaker was the eel and the forepeak was the jar!"

Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message

 

A reminder that each day you can catch up on the latest news from the Vendée Globe by watching the short daily summary online.  Yesterday, the leading boats were passing through or preparing their way through the first Ice Gate.  To view the video, just click here and select daily report.