'It’s the third Doldrums of the race, it is very frustrating,' said Mike Golding summarising progress through the last fifteen or sixteen hours onboard Gamesa, racing in the Vendee Globe this morning.
As he struggles with the high pressure ridge which is effectively barring progress south, Golding admits these are challenging times, especially considering leader Armel Le Cléac’h seems to have made a small jump of the chasing pack during the night.
'The wind is up and down and it is pouring with rain. All night it has been like this. I had a steady afternoon yesterday, with 15kts of breeze. Then I had a little stoppage. Then it came back at 15kts, then 15kts from a bad direction, then I stopped again and since then it has been up and down. As I speak it’s just dropped to five knots. It is so up and down, it is hard to rest.
'It’s hard to see a way out right now, you kind of have to wait until the system moves and evolves. Certainly the wind is not doing what is says on the files. The reality it is very much more confused and dynamic. It’s very difficult to see what to do from a strategic point of view. I can see what Jean-Pierre [Dick] is doing, while Armel is just banking miles down the course as much as he can in terms of distance to the mark. I was a little worried about Jean Le Cam in the west of me but in fact he seems to be having the same thing.
'It is hard to have a sail plan. At the moment it is full main and genoa, but sometimes the main is flogging. But it will be interesting to see how my average speed is, I suspect it is not too bad.'
On the rankings at 08:00 this morning, Golding is currently lying sixth, 444 miles from the leader and just under 200 miles from fifth placed, Bernard Stamm onboard Cheminées Poujoulat.
Mike will be on Vendée Globe TV here at midday GMT today.
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