Vendée Globe - Thomson has a lead of 18 miles in a fleet stretching out 5000 miles

The leaders in the 8^th Vendée Globe are gybing along the edge of the Antarctic Exclusion Zone. Although they have only sailed 330 miles in 24h at an average speed of 13.9 knots for Alex Thomson and 13.4 knots for Armel Le Cléac’h, this has been one of the rare days when their foilers have not clocked up amazing distances. The skipper of Hugo Boss has already sailed 10,700 miles since leaving Les Sables at an average speed of 17.3 knots.

 

Further back, Sébastien Josse (Edmond de Rothschild) is continuing to narrow the gap recovering 140 miles in 24 hours and was the second fastest in the fleet after StMichel-Virbac.   The contest is still raging between Paul Meilhat (SMA) and Jérémie Beyou (Maître CoQ) who are finishing a hard day of work upwind. In these conditions, Paul on his foiler has been speeding along and is now 8 miles ahead of Beyou.

Jean-Pierre Dick, the fastest in the fleet averaged 22.5 knots in 4 hours and has left Le Cam and Ruyant 239 miles behind. Thomas Ruyant on Le Souffle du Nord pour Le Projet Imagine has slowed following damage to his mainsail battens. Yesterday he was 23 miles behind Le Cam and today 100…

Finally in the pack, Louis Burton is sailing more than 100 miles ahead of the Japanese sailor, Kojiro Shiraishi (Spirit of Yukoh). The battle is raging between Kojiro and Conrad Colman (Foresight Natural Energy), with just six miles between them. Finally, Arnaud Boissières (La Mie Câline) is catching up in the windy conditions in the South Atlantic winning back twenty miles a day to find himself in 14th place this evening 20 miles behind the New Zealander.

Didac Costa (One Planet One Ocean) and Sébastien Destremau (TechnoFirst-faceOcean) are suffering in the ridge of high pressure with depressing speeds: 5.4 knots over the past 24 hours for Sébastien and 7.2 knots for Didac.

(www.vendeeglobe.org)