Vendée Globe Day 18 morning update: South Atlantic Dilemmas
by Vendée Globe 25 Nov 2020 20:00 AEDT
24 November 2020
The Saint Helena high pressure system that dominates the South Atlantic is cut by a cold front which is now splitting the top half of the Vendée Globe fleet.
More and more solo skippers are deciding to opt for the southerly route, first working through the front, then making slow, soggy miles in light, variable winds near the centre of the high. They are searching for the eastbound fast lane - 'the real wind' - as Briton Sam Davies calls it this morning.
Other than for runaway leaders Charlie Dalin and Thomas Ruyant, fighting south eastwards - on the rhumb line (direct shortest) course - appears to be heading to a much less certain future. Dalin is now over 80 nautical miles ahead of Ruyant.
Britain's Sam Davies (Initiatives Coeur) and Louis Burton (Bureau Vallée), Alex Thomson (HUGO BOSS) and now the group of three, 11th to 13t,h Giancarlo Pedote (Prysmian Group), Damien Seguin (Groupe Apicil) and Benjamin Dutreux (OMIA-Water Family) have all elected to go south. Davies and Burton were first to make this move 36 hours ago and this morning are just two miles apart.
"I think I chose the right moment to go south and get through the front which is cutting the South Atlantic in half. I have managed to use some really good wind in the rain squalls in the front to come south and at times yesterday I was the fastest boat in the fleet yesterday afternoon and I was even foiling at 20kts some of the time, and so that is great as I have managed to catch up with Louis Burton a bit. Right now he is just two miles to leeward of me. We are sailing beside each other and I can see his little red light to leeward. It is nice to have another boat to be able to speed test against in the South Atlantic. It is great to be in this group, it is really exciting because there are lots of options and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the next 24 hours. I am convinced this is the only option that I had was to dive south and get around this second high and try and find the real wind." the British skipper of Initiatives Coeur reported on this morning's 0400hrs TU radio call.
They have Alex Thomson some 50 miles to their NE, the HUGO BOSS skipper now eighth.
As third placed Jean Le Cam carries on SE, always looking to the shortest miles and most direct route as he has since the start Kevin Escoffier (PRB) is on the horns of his dilemma. Typically for this area of the South Atlantic the different weather modelling applications don't agree. The skipper from Saint Malo points out, " It will go soggy today if I head south. But I could still go east... I have a (weather) file that tells me to go 100 degrees, due east, and the other which tells me to go due south. It's not easy. Maybe I have to ask Jean for advice, he seems to know. In this case I think you have to favor speed, which I did all night, with four sail changes. I'm trying to just keep the boat going fast forwards."
Rankings at 08H00 UTC:
| Pos | Sail No | Skipper / Yacht Name | DTF (nm) | DTL (nm) |
|---|
| 1 |
FRA 79 | Charlie Dalin / APIVIA | 19006.1 | 0 |
| 2 |
FRA 59 | Thomas Ruyant / LinkedOut | 19077.9 | 71.8 |
| 3 |
FRA 01 | Jean Le Cam / Yes we Cam ! | 19369.6 | 363.5 |
| 4 |
FRA 85 | Kevin Escoffier / PRB | 19448.2 | 442.1 |
| 5 |
FRA 17 | Yannick Bestaven / Maître Coq IV | 19455.4 | 449.3 |
| 6 |
MON 10 | Boris Herrmann / Seaexplorer ‑ Yacht Club De Monaco | 19456.2 | 450.1 |
| 7 |
FRA 4 | Sébastien Simon / ARKEA PAPREC | 19568.4 | 562.3 |
| 8 |
GBR 99 | Alex Thomson / HUGO BOSS | 19634.8 | 628.7 |
| 9 |
FRA 109 | Samantha Davies / Initiatives ‑ Coeur | 19676.3 | 670.2 |
| 10 |
FRA 18 | Louis Burton / Bureau Vallée 2 | 19679 | 672.9 |
| 11 |
FRA 09 | Benjamin Dutreux / OMIA ‑ Water Family | 19758 | 751.9 |
| 12 |
FRA 1000 | Damien Seguin / Groupe APICIL | 19789.5 | 783.4 |
| 13 |
ITA 34 | Giancarlo Pedote / Prysmian Group | 19827.1 | 821 |
| 14 |
FRA 53 | Maxime Sorel / V And B Mayenne | 19857.7 | 851.6 |
| 15 |
FRA 27 | Isabelle Joschke / MACSF | 19899.9 | 893.8 |
| 16 |
FRA 30 | Clarisse Cremer / Banque Populaire X | 20006 | 999.9 |
| 17 |
FRA 49 | Romain Attanasio / Pure ‑ Best Western Hotels and Resorts | 20017 | 1010.9 |
| 18 |
SUI 7 | Alan Roura / La Fabrique | 20076.2 | 1070.1 |
| 19 |
FRA 92 | Stéphane Le Diraison / Time For Oceans | 20231 | 1224.9 |
| 20 |
FRA 14 | Arnaud Boissieres / La Mie Câline ‑ Artisans Artipôle | 20874.3 | 1868.2 |
| 21 |
ESP 33 | Didac Costa / One Planet One Ocean | 20892.4 | 1886.3 |
| 22 |
GBR 777 | Pip Hare / Medallia | 20896.4 | 1890.3 |
| 23 |
FRA 71 | Manuel Cousin / Groupe Sétin | 20900.5 | 1894.4 |
| 24 | FR
FRA 02 | Armel Tripon / L'Occitane en Provence | 21025.9 | 2019.8 |
| 25 |
FRA 72 | Alexia Barrier / TSE ‑ 4myplanet | 21389.3 | 2383.2 |
| 26 |
FRA 50 | Miranda Merron / Campagne de France | 21400.9 | 2394.8 |
| 27 |
FRA 56 | Fabrice Amedeo / Newrest ‑ Art et Fenetres | 21413.8 | 2407.7 |
| 28 |
FRA 83 | Clément Giraud / Compagnie du lit ‑ Jiliti | 21417.3 | 2411.2 |
| 29 |
FIN 222 | Ari Huusela / Stark | 21453.6 | 2447.5 |
| 30 | FR
FRA 69 | Sébastien Destremau / Merci | 21489.5 | 2483.4 |
| 31 |
JPN 11 | Kojiro Shiraishi / DMG MORI Global One | 21655.3 | 2649.2 |
| 32 |
FRA 8 | Jérémie Beyou / Charal | 22073.5 | 3067.4 |
| RET |
FRA 6 | Nicolas Troussel / CORUM L'Épargne | | |
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