Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) led the Vendée Globe fleet into the Pacific Ocean last night (UTC) when he crossed out of the Indian Ocean across the line of longitude under Tasmania at 23:45:25hrs UTC.
His elapsed time since starting from Les Sables d’Olonne on Sunday 11th November at 1302hrs is 32d 11h 43m and so he is still just under 11 hours behind the 2016 record set by Armel Le Cléac’h. Dalin will also pass the theoretical half way point of his race today.
As he negotiates the eastern corner of the Australian safety exclusion zone he has had slightly less breeze than his pursuers. Whilst Yoann Richomme (PAPREC ARKÉA) continues to pull back miles on second placed Seb Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) – he has recovered more than 150 to be about 50 miles behind – Dalin retains a solid margin. Simon remains bullish despite losing his starboard foil, reporting this morning: “It’s going well, the loss of the foil thing is always disappointing, but that’s how it is, the race continues. My retirement four years ago was already somewhat linked to the foils, except that this time, there is no collateral damage, and in addition the weather pattern allows me to hope for something nice until mid-Pacific, so I remain hopeful! In any case there have already been great stories with a single foil, this edition is of such a high level that it will be difficult to do the same thing as Alex Thomson, but there is surely something nice to achieved so I remain completely on it! My goal was to finish the Vendée Globe, I keep that in mind anyway! Maybe this foil damage will allow me to look after the mast and finish the race, we never ever know.”
“It’s certain that the boat is asymmetrical now, I adjusted my polar for the routings, so on one tack, I am missing about 30% of the boat. Afterwards I don’t have the impression that it fundamentally changes the trajectories, it just slows me down a little on port tack, it’s not really noticeable when the sea state is really horrible, it will be more noticeable when the sea is longer and the foil would otherwise allow you to catch surfs that I couldn’t catch! Hoping that the Pacific is a little more on starboard tack so that it’s a nice moment!”
Sam Davies (Initiatives Coeur) has just passed Cape Leeuwin, “It is going better now as I have my battery management system under control so I have not had any blackouts for a while now thankfully. I am still monitoring the set up, it is not perfect. I still have some work to do to be sure I can keep charging my batteries without taking too many risks. Right now it is really nice sailing, broad reaching the sun was almost out but now the fog is back. I have just passed Cape Leeuwin and had a little calm patch which was good as I had some work to do on the bow to protect from some chafe and so that gave me some time to do that. Now the breeze has come back and we should have some fast reaching over the next 24 hours but nothing too gnarly. To be honest I have not been routing other competitors as I have had a few issues to sort out. So I have also been using these light spots to make some really good checks on the boat. So I am more concentrating on my route, where I am going, not really looking too much at the rest of the fleet. Obviously I look at the three boats I am with, Boris, Juju and Clarisse, it was frustrating with these issues to have lost some miles to Boris and Justine, but that is my goal to stay with that group. That is all I am looking at right now. And the race is still very long and so there is not much I can do, I am sailing the best I can with what I have got.
The Indian Ocean has been true to form, I think our group has actually escaped the best from the massive, aggressive depressions. The huge low the leaders had we had just before themand it was a bit more in the young stage and it was not so big and developed but it was pretty gnarly as we were in the Agulhas current and so that was a great entry into the Indian with a heinous sea state and the front going through. So that was a good reminder of what the Southern Ocean can be like. But otherwise we have escaped the worst of the low pressures and we have just reached all the way across the Indian Ocean on port more or less, with bits of stronger and lighter winds but a really heinous sea state all the way to the Kerguelens, it was true to the Indian. I think the Indian is always hard because of the sea state, the currents, the depression are really young and aggressive and then it just depends on where you hook in and the speed you go. You can see with the foilers we will get one or maybe two depressions, but because we go that bit faster we stay with them longer so we get hit by fewer depressions than those nearer the back of the fleet. They are the ones really suffering. And that seems to be the same every time I go to the Indian Ocean it is the back of the fleet which get nailed the worst and that seems very unfair. The Indian has been OK for me but for sure I will be pleased to change ocean at Tasmania and pass into the Pacific.”
