Vendee Globe - Le Cleac'h flying home

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 19 Jan 2017 Vendee Globe Race leader Armel Le Cléac’h is on the final tack for the finish of the 2016/17 Vendee Globe Race.

At the 0400UTC position report, he had 145nm to sail to the finish at Les Sables D'Olonne and was expected to be greeted by a crowd of hundreds of thousands of French sailing fans on Thursday afternoon or early evening local time.

Although he tacked very conservatively just short of the Scilly Isles, the move has paid off for Le Cléac’h who is sailing fast at speeds of 11-12kts in winds averaging 15-20kts which are expected to ease a little in the final miles to the finish line.

Alex Thomson has played the only card he had left in his hand - to tack early and spend some of the 800nm lead he enjoys over the third placed competitor.

However that move has not brought the dividend hoped for, and according to the latest projections from Predictwind, Thomson will have to tack to make the finish line, but with a reduced length of finishing tack than when he flipped onto the port tack to head directly for Les Sables for the first time.

According to Predictwind, Le Cléac’h will finish between 1600 and 1800hrs on Thursday afternoon. Thomson is predicted to finish about 12 hours later.

Although Thomson has a similar distance to Le Cléac’h (plus the 33nm margin he enjoyed before they tacked), Thomson's approach to the finish has been slower as he is sailing closer to the wind and at speeds of 9-10kts.

Earlier Thomson revealed on the Live Show on the Vendee Globe Race channel that his anemometer problems had continued, and a temporary repair had evidently failed. The issues with the anemometers had affected his autopilots and ability to run his automated steering systems.

Daily Telegraph correspondent Tom Carey, who is in Les Sables D'Olonne for the finish reported yesterday before the two boats tacked:

After nearly 25,000 nautical miles of sailing, and having overcome the loss of one of his two foils to recover from the near 900-mile deficit to his French rival Armel Le Cléac’h just before Christmas, Thomson had clawed his way back to within 33nm by mid-afternoon on Wednesday. Then the pendulum swung again.



Playing a tense game of dare with each other, the two boats had sailed closer and closer to the Scilly Isles, off the coast of Great Britain, daring each other to tack first. Eventually Le Cleac'h, as the lead boat, tacked onto port with the shift with Thomson following an hour or so later, gambling that the breeze might shift again. So far it is a gamble which has not paid off.

The gap had extended to 57.6nm by the 9 pm bulletin on Wednesday night; still an impossibly small margin after nearly three months of battling across the world’s oceans but one which may now be too big to bridge.

Thomson certainly sounded gloomy about his prospects of completing the comeback when the Vendée Live show – this race is so big in France it has its own television channel – caught up with him on Wednesday, revealing that for several days now he had been battling problems with the wind instruments on his £3million 60ft race boat Hugo Boss, which in turn have prevented the yacht’s autopilot from working properly.

“I don’t think I can catch Armel,” he said bluntly. “The routing is very clear – we will go nearly to the Scilly Isles, wait for a left shift, and when it comes we tack.

“There are no real options for me anymore, I think my options have run out. It might be possible to catch a few miles, but it’s difficult for me at the moment. Until I can get my autopilot driving on a wind angle, it’ll be very tricky in the conditions I have.

“I can’t imagine another few days like the last couple of days. I don’t have any tension about the finish. I have tension about trying to make the autopilots work. I’ve got an anemometer in my hand, and I’m trying to splice wires. I don’t care about the finish right now; I just want to sleep.”

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The finish can be viewed live by clicking here