Vendee Globe - Both leaders tack setting up an intense finish battle

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 18 Jan 2017 According to the official tracker, Vendee Globe Race leader, Armel Le Cleac'h has tacked in what could be the final move of the Vendee Globe race for 2016/17. Rival Alex Thomson has responded.

At the latest report, the French sailor was attempting to cross ahead of his rival, Alex Thomson - who still had the option to tack underneath and then take his chances on the final 24 hours of the round the world nonstop race.

The margin at the latest sked at 1700UTC had the margin between the two boats down to 33nm - the closest they have been since Le Cleac'h passed Thomson in the Southern Ocean between Cape of Good Hope and the Kerguelen Islands after Thomson broke his starboard DSS foil after a collision with an unidentified object. At one point le Cleac'h stretch out to a 900nm margin, but that got reeled in off the coast of Brazil to 38nm - but 36 hours ago was out to a 75nm gap.

Since both tacked that margin has reduced to its closest yet - 25nm, however Le Cleac'h has the fastest speed over the last four hours - which includes time lost during a tack by Thomson. Over the last 24 hours the average speeds are very similar (includes a tack for each boat).

Applying dinghy racing tactics, Thomson in the last hour has tacked well short of the point chosen by Le Cleac'h - setting the scene for a close race to the finish, in about 26 hours time.

Earlier, the course routing from Predictwind's weather routing function shows that Thomson had two options. The first being to sail a similar course to le Cleac'h and essentially follow Banque Populaire VIII for the remaining 300nm into the finish at Les Sables D'Olonne on the west coast of France, just north of La Rochelle.

Thomson's other option was to tack short of the point where Le Cleac'h turned for the finish and then do a second tack back onto starboard to make the finish line in Les Sables. That is the option the British sailor has chosen making for a thriller all the way to the finish.

Both the tracker and deduced data show that Thomson is sailing a little higher and faster than his French rival when sailing to windward, giving Hugo Boss a better Velocity Made Good (VMG) - a measure of who has made the better progress to the next mark (finish). Sails from the Doyle Sails loft are the likely reason for this superior performance which has been noticeable for several days, with the boats essentially in the same weather system, and with both able to deploy their DSS foil. Doyles have a strong group of Volvo Ocean Race winners in their NZ team and a lot of work went into rig and sails before the race, using both Thomson's shorthanded sailing experience and the Doyles crewed VOR knowledge.

Thomson has set two new singlehanded monohull records in this edition of the Vendee Globe - being the fastest time to the Equator, and the 24 hr single handed monohull sailing category - both for boats 60ft and under and all singlehanded monohulls. He bettered the 24hr mark on the run to the Cape of Good Hope, but needed to exceed the old mark by 1nm for it to be recognised.

Thomson has now opted to tack early and use this advantage, plus hope for a fortuitous change in the direction of the breeze, then Thomson could pull off a last-gasp win.

The other two factors in the race are that Le Cleac'h appears to have overstood the layline for the finish line and will have to dip the NW French coast before heading for the finish at Les Sables. This does give Banque Populaire VIII the advantage of being able to close reach for the final 24 hours, but she is sailing extra distance and will be closer to the coast.

The second factor is that the breeze is a headwind, meaning that although the boats have to only sail one tack, they should be close hauled. Average wind strength for the duration of the leg is around the 20kts mark meaning that they will be stronger in gusts, and that will test the ability of the skippers to manage their boats over the final stage. The IMOCA60 is not designed for upwind beating, and unless they are forced to sail to a particular mark or waypoint. The preferred angle is a close reach or lower - which the option Le Cleac'h has taken - but at the possible penalty of longer distance.

While no-one looks for gear failure, it is a salient fact that in the history of this race there have been some notable gear failures on the final day, some catastrophic. Battling upwind in the 60ft singlehanders that have just sailed 26,000nm will draw heavily on the seamanship of the two sailors, to both minimise damage to their charges, but also to sail hard enough to win.

Although Thomson has admitted that Le Cleac'h will be hard to pass there is very little that is predictable in yacht racing and the Vendee Globe, at this stage is still capable of the unexpected.

Maybe there is plenty of golf left in this hole, and Thomson has clearly elected to take the fight to Le Cleac'h.

The race is predicted to finish at 7.00pm on Thursday evening UTC.