Vendee Globe: Day 3 - Passing Finisterre - the last land sighted until Cape Horn?
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 12 Nov 2024 04:38 PST
11 November 2024
Justine Mettraux - Team Work Team SNEF- Vendée Globe - Day 2 - IMOCA60 - November 11, 2024 © Justine Mettraux
According to the latest report, Sam Goodchild (Vulnerable) is the new race leader of the Vendee Globe race
However we believe this is just a quirk of the method used by Vendee Globe, which is straight line distance to finish. Until the competitors reach and round the Cape of Good Hope, near Cape Town.
The more accurate method is Time to Finish or reach a particular waypoint, which we will be using from tomorrow. It requires weather routing to be used, which is relatively easy using Predictwind.
We believe that last night's race leader Charlie Dalin (MACIF) to the west of Dalin is still the race leader, as the next move of the crews will be to position themselves to go west and break through the Doldrums. They then go around the back of the South Atlantic High and once they have connected with that they should get a slingshot ride around the Cape of Good Hope and into the southern Indian Ocean.
Update: At the next sked, Charlie Dalin opted to cross back into the leaders off Portugal, presumably because while he had the advantage of a fresher breeze, it was not the right time to make the real move to the west. When he came back Goodchild was ahead by a small margin, and Dalin second by 9nm, but sailing faster and with a better VMG over the last 30minutes, however Goodchild has the better numbers over the sked period.
On the water, according to the Distance to Finish system Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable) is in third place overall. Ruyant is on the same line as Goodchild with both headed south.
Justine Mettraux (SUI) - Team Work, Team SNEF is the top female sailor in 11th place 83nm behind the race leader. Clarisse Cremer (L'Occitiane) is two place back and 5nm behind Mettraux.
New Zealand sailor Conrad Colman MS Amlin is 20th in the 40 boat fleet - like all of the fleet he had a sleepless night with lots of wind, and was close to Louis Duc (Fives Group) and Jean Le Cam (Tout Commence en Finisterre). The three are the top daggerboard boats in the fleet.
Most competitors elected to avoid the worst weather offshore , and passed inside the Traffic Separation Scheme - which necessitated more gybing - collisions were avoided through the use of radio communication between the sailors.
In the videos below there is some shots of the sea state, which was shot on Day 2 and appears rather benign, with the IMOCA60s making good speed. Conditions worsened overnight. Several sailors can be seen wearing helmets in the on-board video.
Additional Images:
On board Video - Day 2