Sam Goodchild (VULNERABLE) has seen his lead shrink slightly overnight in particular to Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) and Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa) but he still has a useful 38 miles buffer on Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil).
But while the British skipper will be aware of this his bigger concern is the approach of the Doldrums up ahead of him which will inevitably see the leaders slow down as the compression from behind starts this afternoon. Such is the nature of being the hunted not the hunter. And it looks messier and more active for the top peloton.
But nonetheless the leaders are in a reasonably compact group at this stage, the top 12 within an area 150 nautical miles by 150 miles on the 11th day of racing. Speeds picked up yesterday afternoon after three days and nights of light winds, the fast foilers at over 30 knots at times, holding a sustained 25 knots overnight in flat seas.
And so Dalin and Richomme are up to third and fourth, Simon now more to the west reported this morning, “There is an average of 90 decibels inside the boat, which gives me a bit of a headache and it’s hot but it’s been so since the start of the race. We’ve been out for 10 days, I just realised that and that’s a pretty good sign, it means I’m right into in my race and I feel good on board. I’m living my simple life out here. For the moment, everything is going well. I haven’t had any technical issues, just small details. The boat is going very fast indeed but the sea is flat so I let the boat do its thing. I saw a max of 26 knots. The conditions are perfect for going fast. It’s extraordinary, it’s going on its own and doesn’t even need me.
“The battle at the front is pretty incredible. It proves the how close and even the field is, the incredible level of preparation of the teams. It’s pretty great but I’m trying not to look at the tracker too much. The goal is to do my own track, to not to look too much at what the others are doing so as not to have my pace forced. This Wednesday, it’s the Doldrums; we should get into it at the end of the afternoon. It’s always a mysterious area. I think I’ll try to gain a little bit in the west during the night by bearing off a little bit to try to pass it at around 30° West. I’m at 29° for the moment. So another 50-60 miles in the west. I think they’ll come back from behind in the Doldrums because it seems to clear up if we wait a little. We’ll see. Jean (Le Cam) has a lot of sailing to do to get back west. Good luck to him.”
Britain’s Sam Davies (Initiatives Coeur) is going well in ninth at just on 100 miles behind the leading Sam with Clarisse Crémer (L’Occitaine en Provence) tenth and Switzerland’s Justine Mettraux (TeamWork-Team Snef) in 11th all making between 21 and 25 knots this morning.
But for all the skippers, the simple life – as Simon calls it – prevails, all within the tiny confines of their noisy, uncomfortable living cell which will be home for another 60 days at least, even for the leaders on what is not looking like a fast race.
Japanese skipper Kojiro Shiraishi (DMG MORI Global One) in 32nd reflects on his positives, “This is the first time ever I haven’t been seasick at the start of an ocean race. On the boat, there are problems here and there but for the moment the main concern I have is the furling line of the J0 (element allowing to control the furling of the sail). It broke quite quickly and I had to fit the spare one but it deteriorated quite quickly so I will have to repair the first one to make a spare. My Vendée Globe routine: sail, repair, sail, repair. As far as the Doldrums go I hope it will be kind to me and I can get through as simply as possible in it. It is exciting to experience the battle from the inside. It’s true that until now, there haven’t been many favorable conditions for foilers and that’s why the whole fleet remains quite grouped. In the South, we will surely start to see the differences.”
