The leading pack in the Vendée Globe is racing along the depression highway in the South Atlantic after having had to content themselves with sailing at reduced speed for a long time. At this rate, the Cape of Good Hope will quickly be reached.
Behind Dalin, Ruyant and Richomme, the break is made
The best-equipped skippers in the Vendée Globe fleet can finally make their cutting-edge monsters speak thanks to the depression which has formed off the coast of Brazil. As a result, 24-hour speed records fall one after the other. No less than six boats have broken the previous record established between Tuesday and Wednesday by Yoann Richomme (551.4 miles covered, or 1022 kilometers)… and recovered by Richomme himself with 579.86 miles covered in 24 hours, just ahead of Thomas Rettant (572.4 miles).
A symbolic record which allows the skipper on Paprec Arkéa to regain some ground on leader Charlie Dalin. Above all, the leading trio finally managed to break the peloton dynamic observed since the start of the race. The rest of the fleet is pointed at more than 100 nm.
Score Monday at 7 a.m.
1. Charlie Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance), 19,607 nm from the finish
2. Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable), 49.666 nm from the first
3. Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa), at 58.69 nm
4. Sébastien Simon (Dubreuil Group), at 102.68 nm
5. Nicolas Lunven (Holcim – PRB) at 114.37 nm
Depression makes people happy… and people jealous
If the calm paradoxically tends to stress the sailors of the Vendée Globe, the strong winds allow them to push their toys hard and test their abilities in racing conditions. “I just did a little peak at 32 knots there, I have the impression of being a small animal in this hull going at Mach 12! But survival is going well,” commented Thomas Ruyant. The further back you go in the ranking, the lower the speeds. The unlucky ones at the back seem to have missed the low pressure window and are biting their fingers, like Louis Duc (Fives Group-Lantana Environnement), 28th almost 1,000 miles from the lead. “We are going to have the crumbs of their depression, we are going to have to follow the front along the Brazilian coast. »
News from Marina Foils
This sequence of weather systems could well benefit those who are even further away, like the boat of 20 Minutes on Virtual Regatta. Certainly, the virtual skipper on Marina Foils has only gained 10,000 places in recent hours to stabilize around 340,000th place, but the sailors around the top 150,000 are eating up an area with almost no wind off the coast of Brazil. And the window will not reopen for 48 hours, which should give Marina Foils time to catch up.
By negotiating this sequence well, the top 150,000 objective becomes possible again. So maybe?
