Vendee Update–Canaries Ho’: The lead boats will be in amongst the Canary Islands tonight, setting a Vendee record of just 5 days to get there (in 2000 it took the leaders six days). Check out the leaderboard here. The big change is that Wetass favorite Mike Golding has climbed into third place. How did he do it? From his website:

“I didn’t do anything special,” says Golding. “All the special stuff was done about two days ago when we chose to gybe. Obviously delaying that gybe cost me some positions and I’ve just got them back again.” To the west there has been more wind and a more easterly wind angle that allows them to sail faster than boats out to the east.

Being further west has also kept Ecover out of the worst of the window shadow of Madeira, the Portugese islands the leaders passed in the early hours today.

“I wanted to be well clear of Madeira,” says Golding. “It is always a problem and invariably it is on your track and there is a great temptation to cut it close and fall into the flat water behind it. I was trying to respect a cone shaped area on the back of the islands.” The wind shadow of Madeira, as with all the islands down the African coast such as the Canaries and Cape Verdes, can affect the winds up to 150-200 miles to leeward of them.

Yesterday Golding recorded the highest speed of the passage so far – 29 knots thundering down a wave. As conditions got a little lighter at 0400am today he changed up to his larger Code 5 reacher and full mainsail and he says he is still regularly accelerating up to 24 knots.

Although the boats’ record breaking speed south is impressive, Golding does not feel the pace is excessive. “It is hard work, but this is the Vendee Globe – what do you expect? I wouldn’t say we are pushing any harder than normal. Look at the attrition rate – there hasn’t been much breakage. We are so much faster because we have had such a favourable weather system since the start. Since we started we’ve been on a roll.”

Admittedly race leader Vincent Riou is more than 50 miles ahead but Golding thinks he can reel him in. The forecast shows the rapid run south drawing to a close for a while tomorrow before the Trade Winds re-establish themselves on Saturday.

“He’ll run out of these breeze first and we’ll compress back up. So I am concerned by it, but I don’t think it is a killer lead. What is concerning me more is that he is able to do that in these conditions which are roughly Southern Ocean conditions. While I haven’t absolutely had my foot to the floor for the whole time, I hope not to have to sail the race like that. Then it becomes a gamble over who breaks.”

Already, there are some fascinating story lines shaping up in this Vendee: the surprising pace of darkhorse Vincent Riou on older generation PRB; the obvious talent–and obvious inexperience (he got stuck in the wind shadow of Madeira)–of lightning fast Alex Thomson; and the old Vendee lions, Golding and Roland Jourdain on Sill, making all the right moves and patiently waiting for the boats around them to either blow up or make tactical mistakes in the pressure of the chase. If they do neither, it’s going to be a hell of a drag race across the Southern Ocean…



Ecover From Above: Stalking the leaders…

Leave a comment