Vendee Globe - Thomson reduces margin but has to make vital decision

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZ on 18 Jan 2017 Single-handed monohull world record holder, Alex Thomson, continues to gnaw away at Banque Populaire VIII's lead in the Vendee Globe Race.

The margin between the first and second boat is now just 36nm.

There seems to be a net speed advantage to Thomson, sailing Hugo Boss with the British sailor having a significantly better VMG than Armel le Cleac'h (FRA) despite the boats sailing at similar speeds.

The courses produced from the weather routing function of Predictwind, the leading weather forecasting and routing application, recommend the yachts hold on their starboard tack for another 9hrs before tacking and heading for the finish line Les Sables d'Olonne which is around 360nm sailing miles.

The latest route projection from Predictwind is an extreme course, the most extreme that we have seen since S-W started running this function three Volvo Ocean Races ago, and numerous other offshore races since. The more usual option is to stay more on the direct route for the finish, or certainly closer to it.

The boat which tacks first will have a significant advantage if the wind shifts more to the north than predicted. Currently Le Cleac'h is almost in a situation where he is sailing away from the finish line and that is the opportunity for Alex Thomson to exploit.

The ball in now firmly in Alex Thomson's court, with clearly his best ploy to win the race being to tack earlier than the routing recommends, and hope for a favourable shift in the breeze to give him less distance to sail to Les Sables. In other words his best option is to cut the corner on Le Cleac'h.

The other option is to follow the recommendations of the routing and take a similar course to Banque Populaire VIII, and then for the Hugo Boss team to hope that their boat is inherently faster and can sail down the race leader. However Thomson would have to sail on average almost 1.5kts faster for the final 24hours of the race to snatch the lead. For the final leg he is one the tack where he cannot deploy his damaged DSS foil and may lose some of his current relative speed edge.

The third boat, Maitre Coq (Jeremie Beyou) is 760nm Thomson and it maybe that the British sailor is prepare to take a weather gamble and risk spending some of this large lead in an effort to pull off a stunning win.

Finish time for the first competitor is predicted to be around 7.00pm on Thursday evening, local time.