Day four of the Vendée Globe solo non-stop race around the world brings another new leader. As the leaders pass the latitude of the Canary Islands, where they might normally find the trade winds blowing to carry them down towards the Cape Verdes and the Equator beyond, the breeze is lightening and becoming ever more unsettled.
After successive leaders Charlie Dalin, Sam Goodchild and Yoann Richomme comes Nicolas Lunven (pictured) (HOLCIM PRB). Fresh from his new 24 hour record yesterday, Lunven has taken over at the top of the 40 boat fleet this afternoon ahead of Yoann Richomme (Paprec-Arkéa). The race now spans a full 400 miles back to China’s JingKun Xu (Singchain Team Haikou) in 40th place.
But while the leaders are working to find the best route south to the Equator, there are still significan problems for Maxime Sorel (V and B – Monbana – Mayenne), whose ankle is still worrying and he needs to climb his mast, and also for Szabolcs Weöres (New Europe) who climbed his mast this morning to partly sort his problem with his A7 headsail wrapped around his forestay and his J2. He cut a lot away but still needs to find a quiet refuge somewhere to try and repair his badly torn mainsail.
Up front the intensity is that of a Figaro solo offshore championship race. Little surprise then that Lunven and Richomme, both double winners of the French multi stage solo one design race, are doing so well. Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prevoyance) is in sixth and sounded uncharacteristically frazzled and scratchy this morning when he spoke on a French media call: “I had a sleepless night I think I had a whole catalogue of bad manoeuvres and made the wrong choices. I was stopped in front of the island. I was unlucky, it was very frustrating.”
Briton Sam Goodchild was down in sixth this morning but had wriggled back up to third on VULNERABLE. He has had to change out a pilot after another malfunction and so is on his back up. He explained his temporary loss this morning, “I have just stopped in a raincloud for 25 minutes which is a bit tedious hopefully the others will have done the same. The weather going ahead is not straightforward, getting to the Canaries you think you would be looking at trade winds but they are not very stable and so trying to get south is not as clear as you’d hope, so it is how we are going to get south whether we go through the Canaries or there is another passage down.”
German’s Boris Herrmann (GER Malizia SeaExplorer) is ninth and very much into his race rhythm, “ I am very good. This is my first morning barefoot the sun is out I am doing 14 knots in 11knots of breeze and I see Justine Mettraux through my window and she is just behind slightly. I passed her about an hour ago. I did not get much sleep last night as we had Madeira to deal with, we had a lot instability, lots of clouds and gusts which I know the others had too as I was speaking to Yannick Bestaven a wee while ago. I feel good physically and mentally, rather Zen I need to work on my sleep, once that we are done with these kind of conditions I will clean up the boat and sort out all my ropes which lie in the cockpit, have some food. I am enjoying it. I am taking care to look after my mood so that nothing stresses me too much so I don’t get into some funny emotions as on the boat there is nowhere to go. I am careful and take care of myself and found my rhythm pretty well. We had to try to leave Madeira to port, gybe and find the wind shift, it really wasn’t easy“.
After a tough Cape Finisterre the weather now seems to offer a bit of respite welcomed by the fleet of solo sailors. “The leaders are slowing down with less wind – 13 to 15 knots – and a flatter sea that will allow them to slide along nicely and be stable“, explains Basile Rochut, Vendée Globe weather consultant.
“It’s a already a T-shirt and trade wind atmosphere,” continues leader Lunven, invited this afternoon to Vendée Live, the daily race show.
For the leaders the wind will continue to drop away. That should benefit the rest of the fleet, some of whom are still dealing with lively conditions. “We recorded an average of 30 knots and peaks of 40 knots for Jingkun Xu (Singchain Team Haikou) who is bringing up the rear.” Said the weather specialist Rochut.
“It looks very complicated to deal with this trade wind” admits the skipper of Fortinet-Best Western Romain Attanasio. Louis Burton and Boris Herrmann both talk today of a “not very clear situation“.
Meanwhile in 24th Pip Hare (Medallia) is on better form after finding the first days tough, “I feel good now and am a little bit better than before, in my rhythm now. It is not simple looking ahead and there is s balance between going out on a limb and trying not to take too much risk. But generally I feel the west is the better and I keep looking and keep hedging a little bit. Most of all I am sailing fast and my job now is to use the foils which we put so much effort into and so to maximise the speed. It is such tight racing and that is why when you slow down to make a sail change at the moment you lose such a lot of miles against everyone round you and so being close is exciting but it does make you think about doing things differently.”
