Vendee Globe - Steady gain for Golding, Gamesa

by Emily Caroe on 29 Nov 2012 In the Vendee Globe, along with his French running mate, Jean Le Cam on SynerCiel, Mike Golding has made a steady gain on the leaders through the last 24 hours and the British skipper is confident he will continue to gain over the next three days.

'We are in consistent pressure now and just rotating round the system, slowly waiting for it to happen and it is now. I think it has all shaped up OK in the end now. I think in the next few days Banque Populaire and Hugo Boss will come back to us dramatically and Virbac-Paprec 3 has some distance to lose to us as well. It looks OK now, but the main thing is that we will be in the same weather system and not behind, we should go into the system at roughly the same point and that is good news. The forecasts seem to be concurring change to change and look similar and so should generally be reliable.

'Jean Le Cam has done very well, even better than me, but we will get some back. And we are not very separated, I was ahead of him again for a bit, but it’s good.'

Golding confirmed this morning that he has an issue with a halyard lock which needs to be changed.

'It is sticky at the moment and that makes me nervous so I’ll just wind through a new halyard and get it fixed. I am not so worried when I’m on the Genoa, or even the Gennaker but the thought of a problem with the Spinnaker does not bear thinking about.

Golding is in seventh place this morning, making 11.8kts along with Le Cam on 15.2 and having made 60 miles on Banque Populaire, sailed by leader Armel Le Cléac’h, since Vendee Globe website