Photo: Freelance.com skipper Guirec Soudée

 

Whether they are in the middle of the Indian Ocean – as the leaders Charlie Dalin and Sébastien Simon are – or just entering it by South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas – the Vendée Globe fleet are dealing with a whole array of challenges.

 

The leading duo are outrunning a monster low pressure system as they pass the Kerguelen Islands. Before the Cape of Good Hope there is no gentle slip road on to the low pressure chain. And while several skippers are also having to deal with small mechanical problems, Louis Burton’s issue has proven race ending and the skipper of Bureau Vallée who finished third on the last race, has had to abandon and is heading to Cape Town. He has damage to his J2 stay fitting which threatens the security of his mast. With no possible solution Burton and his team took the hardest decision and the hugely popular, hard driving skipper from Saint Malo becomes the second skipper of 40 starters to abandon from this record sized fleet. 

 

Setting the level 

All the way through the fleet is about setting the level, the cursor determining the level of risk.  The sea state in the Agulhas current strands to south and east of the South African tip have been especially tough, as also has it been at the back of the big low pressure system Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) and Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) are racing ahead of. 

 

"It's like a roller coaster it goes up, it goes down, it accelerates, it decelerates and what's good is that there's no need to go back to the checkout to buy a ticket again, we can ride this all day long!" summed up defending Vendée Globe champion Yannick Bestaven (Maître CoQ V). Whether they are north of the Kerguelen Islands or near the southern tip of Africa, the Vendée Globe sailors are almost all dealing with rough conditions and, as usual in the Indian, it is the raging seas which hamper progress and make life so unpleasant. 

 

“We've been getting tossed around quite a bit for the past two days. The boat is accelerating hard and crashing into the next wave. It's crashing in all directions and it's not very pleasant. I feel like I'm sailing in the Raz Blanchard (the notorious Alderney Race) except that usually it's usually all over in a matter of a few hours and here, it's 24/7, endless, non stop!" commented Louis Duc (Five Group – Lantana Environnement) who is getting shaken up in the testing Agulhas Current. "We go from 30 to 10 knots in almost a fraction of a second. It puts a lot of strain on the boat and it's the same for me. You have to be on top of it or you end up on the floor.” 

 

At the front of the fleet the race leader Charlie Dalin seemed to be almost enjoying his race which right now is not against his rivals but against the low pressure system. At the back of the centre of the low there are ten metre waves and brutal 60 knots gusts. But if he and Simon can succeed in staying ahead of the worst of the voracious system the gains will be significant. 

 

Dalin said today, “ I am feeling a bit tired, I need to get a bit of rest. But apart from that I am all good. I am racing this monster of a low pressure. It is not going too bad and I am managing to keep up with my routing, which is good. I am in a pretty good place right now, making good progress towards the east, every little gain towards is pure gold, it means we will be caught by the low pressure further east which means I will have a smaller sea state and less strong winds, which is good. So I am fighting hard to stay ahead for as long as possible. I will get caught eventually that is for sure. But the later, the better.”

 

“ The GRIB files are working pretty well, at the moment regarding wind speed and direction and then I am looking at satellite imagery through Windy (weather forecasting website) and so I am monitoring the progress of these two weather systems in these two ways.”

 

He gives a fascinating insight into the painstaking decision making process which brought him to decide to stay south and challenge the big system, “ It is true I was the south most boat at the time but nonetheless I still had an opportunity to shift north, but it would have cost me, it would probably have been more costly for me than the others. But in terms of decision making I spent ten hours in front of the computer, running hundreds of routings, trying to work out what choice was good and for what reason.” 

 

And for all that the outcome may still be in the balance..... 
“ I still don’t know if it is a good choice. We will find out in a bit more than 24 hours. But it took me a long time to come up with this decision. And it has been fun, it has been fun to sail against this monster. I try not to watch him too much on Adrena (routing software programme) because if you look too much you see the red arrows of 60kts and I say to myself ‘I don’t want to be there’. I am like a horse only looking forwards at the course with the blinkers on.” 
“I try to sail to fast to the east, every metre is important.” 
“What is great is these fast foilers are letting us do new things which before you could do only with multihulls.”