Vendee Globe - Thomson cuts 33nm out of Le Cleac'h with 48hrs left

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZ on 17 Jan 2017 Britain's Alex Thomson sailing Hugo Boss has made a big reduction in the lead of Armel Le Cleac'h in the final stages of the Vendee Globe Race.

The French sailor in Banque Populaire VIII enjoyed a small but comfortable lead of 75nm at 2100UTC on January 16, 2017. That margin stayed almost constant for the next four skeds, with Thomson making inroads at the sked seven hours previously reducing the margin to 69nm - relatively inconsequential as one boat gets a favourable breeze for a period before it passes to the other.

However, in the last seven hours, Thomson has reduced the lead by 27nm for a total reduction of 33nm in the 24hour period.

More significant is the fact that the Brits big gain has come in just seven hours, where he sailed 50nm compared to Banque Populaire VIII's 33.5nm in the same period.

The reason for the gain is not apparent, however with the DSS foils deployed, Hugo Boss has been consistently faster, recently setting a new 24 hour solo sailing record in a monohull. Hugo Boss is the only boat in the now 18 strong fleet, using sails from the Doyle Sail loft in NZ which has several top Volvo Ocean Race sailors in its design and sales teams.

The measurement of the margin between the boat is rather fraught using the Great Circle route, as currently, the boats are sailing away from the finish line in Les Sables D'Olonne, just north of La Rochelle on the western French coast.

The weather routing from Predictwind has been constant for the past three days with all four feeds used by the world leading weather software recommending a course that takes the leaders around a high pressure zone positioned off Les Sables, and well into the English Channel, almost to the Scilly Isles before tacking to head to the finish.

Predictwind has largely confirmed the official margins, using a sailing distance/time to finish method, where the boats are sailed from their current position along the fastest optimum course to finish in the fastest possible time.

The Predictwind method assumes the IMOCA60 performance profile used (adjusted from standard to reflect the speed of the current generation of IMOCA60's) will be equal for both boats and using the four weather feeds gives a margin at the finish of 36, 44, 49 or 52nm. In that range of margins, the official margin of 45nm looks accurate.

The finish time from the Predictwind optimised courses is close to that being published by Vendee Globe organisers, so there is a high degree of co-relation between the two models, again giving confidence as to the accuracy.

Thomson has another 20 hours left to sail on starboard tack. Currently is on a close reach and should have his DSS foil deployed and assisting his speed for another six hours before pulling up onto a close hauled course. They are predicted to sail for six hours close hauled.

Both lead boats are expected to tack onto port around 1900hrs UTC on Wednesday, January 18 to head for the finish. Thomson broke his starboard DSS foil, at Cape Town, which generates lift in reaching conditions and will be unable to use this on the final sprint to the finish. Le Cleac'h has had no reported failures that will inhibit his speed potential on Banque Populaire VIII.

After the tack, the remaining 24 hours will all be spent close hauled in a freshening breeze increasing to around 20kts average from the ENE.

Finish time for the race leader is expected to be around 7.00pm local time on Thursday evening - depending on weather and boats not suffering any gear failure.