Vendee Globe ROUGH AND TUMBLE IN SOUTHERN SURF

by Philippe Jeantot on 16 Dec 2000 The regular Westerlies, legendary in the Southern Ocean are coming back into play as the front boats in the Vendée Globe 2000 approach the
Kerguelen Islands. After a perplexing couple of days in variable wind conditions, the fleet has at last found a more consistent boat speed and
enjoyable surf under sunny skies. Michel Desjoyeaux (PRB) and Roland Jourdain (Sill Matines La Potagere), who have kept the pursuing pack
at bay for another day, are now one weather system ahead. Yves Parlier (Aquitaine Innovations), however, is heading Northeast, leading up the
chase, clocking the best speeds over the last day, and attacking the 200 mile gap behind Jourdain.

Last night they were on the back of a depression, which had swept past just above them, and Jourdain commented on the difficulty of sailing
through its trough, in confused seas and a weaker breeze. Now the new low pressure system, which the second flank of boats have already
faced, is bearing down on the leaders. Jourdain was surprised still at the pace of this Vendée Globe on the radio this morning: 'The rhythm is
still like that of a transat! You hardly have time to breath, and it¹s tiring always having to stay wary of everyone else.'

As the fleet prepares for the next low pressure system, the two boats placed in the North now are Marc Thiercelin (Active Wear) and Ellen
MacArthur (Kingfisher). Both are battling furiously in the white water surf to push their bows ahead of their closest rival, Thomas Coville
(Sodebo), who is holding the middle ground 3 degrees to the South of them now.

Catherine Chabaud (Whirlpool), who had remained very North for a long while, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, is now with Thierry Dubois
(Solidaires) the furthest South. She admitted that this route was unavoidable, with a much more complex weather system than she imagined.
Now she has come back into contact with this second group, she intends to stay in the same weather system as them, working the boat
through each surf in the big seas and 40 knot winds.

Josh Hall has been working EBP/Gartmore Northward over last night and at dawn was just half a mile south of most eastern of the Crozet
Islands. He gybed close to the island and got into the Southwest wind almost instantly. 'Its been an incredible sailing day - the strong wind
and a huge westerly swell have seen us sailing at speeds up to 27 knots all morning.'

Javier Sanso (Old Spice) has repaired his port diagonal 2 and is back on course. He faxed: 'I¹m going a little North now to rest a bit waiting for
that NW to come on the next bus to the East. It was kind of an adrenalin rush to go up (the mast) in 30 knots and do all of this with a big swell!'

Mike Golding (Team Group 4) continues to eat up the miles, sailing in a steady 30 knot Westerly. He described the surfing conditions as if
'you¹re on the brink of a disaster', the situation heightened for him by hard squalls popping up on the radar in the guise of icebergs, or the
autopilot throwing the helm off course when the boat¹s going at speed near to a gybe.

The satellite communication link was bad this morning and the Mini M doesn¹t work in this area and so the Race HQ was unable to contact
some of the skippers.

Radio Chat Extracts

Roland Jourdain (Sill Matines La Potagère) : 'I brought down the main sail as I've been having problems with the head of this sail. I repaired
and hoisted it again to hit upwind conditions for the next few hours. Now, I'm back in calmer airs going downwind. Mich managed to get back
onto another little train but I missed the connection! I am pushing hard to get back up to where he is. The rhythm is still like that of a transat!
It's tiring always having to stay wary of everyone else.'

Catherine Chabaud (Whirlpool) : 'Yesterday I couldn¹t avoid passing South of the low pressure. Then it was really sunny, 35 knots of wind
and long, long surfs. I have to hang on to the chart table but it¹s amazing. When I was slowed down because I went South too late it was really
depressing. I can see that in fact the weather system is very complicated. I was slower in this valley of lows and this depression went further
North than forecasted.'

Simone Bianchetti (Aquarelle.com) : 'The wind has dropped, so I can rest a bit. The atmosphere is very romantic, very similar to where I live at
this time of the year. North of Venice the sea colour is similar, not only the sun is romantic.'

Mike Golding (Team Group 4) : ' The boat's going at 22 knots, I'm on the edge of going fully downwind. The front passed through very early
this morning. I'm on a South going starboard gybe. The acceleration is stressful on everything. The boat slews around, the autopilot struggles,
and then on the other side you're too deep and risk gybing. Plus you have a risk of icebergs so the radar's on. To make matters more
interesting, a load of rain showers popped up last night which show up as quite hard images on the radar and you think they're all icebergs! At
the moment I'm repairing one of my autopilot systems, as it's good but every now and again, it throws a wobbly and loses the helm.'

Javier Sanso (Old Spice) : 'I have light weight diagonal now. It actually happened to me before on a maxi during a Transat race but there we
were 19 to fix the problem, but using the same system, it helps to have seen it before. So from the knot in the 1 spreader the line goes to the
block on 2 and then to my solent car and then to my pit winch, voila. My morale is back, last night it was in Palma.'

Latest Ranking* polled at 0930hrs (UT):

Psn Boat Skipper Lat Long Headg Av. Speed** DTF*** Miles from leader

1 PRB Michel Desjoyeaux 47°00'S 71°37'E 80 13.7 14696 0
2 Sill Matines & La Potagère Roland Jourdain 47°14'S 68°33'E 65 13.2 14820 124
3 Aquitaine Innovations Yves Parlier 48°42'S 63°24'E 88 16.5 15006 310
4 Active Wear Marc Thiercelin 45°44'S 61°30'E 70 17 15118 422
5 Sodebo Savourons la Vie Thomas Coville 48°40'S 61°19'E 72 14.6 15121 425
6 Kingfisher Ellen MacArthur 45°18'S 61°30'E 58 15.8 15126 430
7 Union Bancaire Privée Dominique Wavre 47°22'S 60°20'E 69 13.9 15131 435
8 Solidaires Thierry Dubois 50°02'S 58°21'E 90 12.1 15259 563
9 Whirlpool Catherine Chabaud 49°12'S 56°44'E 69 14.6 15302 606
10 EBP - Défi PME - Gartmore Josh Hall 46°55'S 55°11'E 106 15.3 15356 660
11 VM Matériaux Patrice Carpentier 46°50'S 44°35'E 132 11.3 15774 1078
12 Voilà.fr Bernard Gallay 46°25'S 44°41'E 113 10.7 15786 1090
13 Nord Pas de Calais - Chocolats du Monde Joe Seeten 47°43'S 39°56'E 166 7.52 15963 1267
14 Aquarelle.com Simone Bianchetti 43°22'S 32°30'E 119 5.1 16316 1620
15 Old Spice Javier Sanso 43°00'S 22°58'E 122 8.66 16723 2027
16 Wind Pascuale de Gregorio 44°10'S 19°45'E 92 12.4 16796 2100
17 Team Group 4 Mike Golding 46°49'S 15°21'E 92 15.1 16916 2220
18 DDP - 60ème Sud Didier Munduteguy 40°46'S 05°46'E 119 9.83 17465 2769
19 Modern University for the Humanities Fedor Konyukhov 33°56'S 16°14'W 58 3.51 18566 3870

*Ranking ­ A series of waypoints marking a logical route have been used to calculate the rankings. The boat is ranked according to the
waypoint it is nearest to.

**Average Speed - this is an instantaneous reading

***DTF (Distance to finish) - This is worked out in comparison to the logical route
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