Vendee Globe - It's complicated

by Vendee Globe on 12 Feb 2017 The final miles to Les Sables d'Olonne remain complicated for Eric Bellion who tacked yesterday afternoon and is sailing SE towards the north coast of Spain as he battles upwind. Bellion still has 25-30kts of cold NE'ly wind and 320 miles to make to the finish line.

There has been no further news from Conrad Colman on his dismasted Foresight Energy. Winds should ease off progressively for Colman today but it remains extremely difficult on board with big seas and 25-30kts of wind.

Arnaud Boissières now has less than 1000 miles to make to complete his third successive Vendée Globe and the skipper from Les Sables d'Olonne in 11th place is making 11kts at 110 miles north of Madeira this morning. Fabrice Amedeo is 225 miles behind and is in lighter NW;ly breezes making just over six knots.

Alan Roura is still fighting the light winds of the Azores High trying to get north and making modest progress. The massive ridge of high pressure is extending west-east and so that remains his only real option right now with lighter breezes to his east.

Rich Wilson in 14th place is making more comfortable northwards progress this morning. He noted last night:

'We are finally out of the worst of the pounding of the trade winds, we still have 15-25 knots of wind, but the direction has shifted from Northeast to East approximately, and the seas have followed, so as we head North, we are not going so much into the waves.

So sad to hear of Conrad Colman’s dismasting last night. He has sailed an amazing race, with so many things breaking, and him repairing essentially all of them, an incredible mariner. I’m hoping that he will be able to rig a jury rig and sail into the finish, even if it takes awhile. He’s not that far away, and he could do it I have full faith. What a culmination that would be.

He will now be still in the leftover sea of that gale, and without a mast, the motion inside the boat must be awful. It was found after the Fastnet Race 1979 disaster, that the presence of the mast, and the inertia that it presented, made the boats much more stable than if they were dismasted. So I hope that he is ok inside there.'

Didac Costa and Romain Attanasio are sailing identical speed this morning 41 miles apart with the Spanish skipper Costa still holding on to the slender lead.

Pieter Heerema is still not out of the Doldrums yet and has averaged between one and three knots overnight. Sébastien Destremau is climbing north at just under nine knots in a moderate E'ly trade wind.