11.09.20 - 0230pm - After almost 24 hours at sea, the Vendée Globe fleet is on the wind in good conditions, with the best-placed group of boats located about 190 nautical miles north of Cape Finisterre and nearly 300 miles west of Les Sables d’Olonne.

That group is led by Nicolas Troussel, on the Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed

CORUM L’Éparge, who has been setting a hot pace at the front of the fleet. He is now on starboard tack, heading due south about 11 miles ahead of Jérémie Beyou’s Charal who, in turn, is four miles in front of Kevin Escoffier on PRB.

The other boats in that group are SeaExplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco (Boris Herrmann), ARKEA PAPREC (Sébastien Simon), APIVIA (Charlie Dalin), L’Occitane en Provence (Armel Tripon), LinkedOut (Thomas Ruyant) and Bureau Vallée 2 (Louis Burton). Ruyant is the most westerly of the group, about 63 miles north of Troussel.

Then, slightly further east, a second group is being led by British sailor Alex Thomson on HUGO BOSS who is competing in the IMOCA fleet for the first time since last year’s Transat Jacques Vabre.

Thomson is 22 miles to leeward of Troussel and his progress will be being watched very carefully by his main rivals. He is being chased by Sam Davies on Initiatives-Coeur, Yannick Bestaven on Maître CoQ IV, Clarisse Crémer on Banque Populaire X and Isabelle Joschke on MACSF.

 


It has been a fascinating first phase of the race as the skippers have dealt with varying conditions and some boats have travelled faster on particular angles of sail than others. The leader on the tracker is actually Damien Seguin on Groupe APICIL who is nearest to the finish line of the race – a mere 24,000 miles away – but he is 60 miles southeast and to leeward of Troussel.

The boats furthest west are the ones closest to the trough line in the Atlantic – a daunting meteorological feature packing strong winds and big seas – that the skippers are looking to traverse. Once across it they will make the transition from strengthening southerlies to more favourable winds from the north and northwest.

Tackling that transition is going to be the first big moment of the race and Alex Thomson made clear that it will not be easy, remarking that it would be a moment that, he said, would “sort out the men from the boys.”

So far only one skipper has elected to return to Les Sables d’Olonne as the fleet easies into its marathon solo journey. The unlucky one is Fabrice Amedeo on board Newrest-Art & Fenêtres, who discovered a problem with one of his halyard locks and has had to go into the harbour, out of the swell, to get it fixed.

Otherwise most of the skippers seem to be settling in. Ari Huusela, who is near the back of the fleet on STARK, has been sailing with one reef and his J3 as he begins his quest to become the first Finnish sailor to complete the Vendée Globe. “I am feeling fine and all is good on board,” he reported. “I have eaten well and right now it is porridge and routing time.”

Up ahead of him Boris Herrmann was enjoying the first battles of this race. “It’s exciting with good teams close to us,” he reported from on board SeaExplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco. “I need to observe their positions a lot just for extra safety. We are approaching the first front now – it’s bumpy and I keep it at 20 knots of boatspeed for extra safety.”

Herrmann reminds us that, at this stage in the race, with the 33 boats spread out across just 122 miles of ocean, the skippers have to be careful not to allow their boats to get too close to each other when they are sleeping or taking a nap. They are also having to keep an eye out for commercial traffic in these early stages.

The message from several of the skippers is about the joy they are feeling at being released to finally get going on one of the greatest quests in endurance sport. This was best summed up by the British sailor, Pip Hare, who made an excellent start on board Medallia.

In a video message, a beaming Hare spoke of her sheer delight at being out on the water and on her way. “So there we go,” she said, “I’ve started the Vendée Globe. We are now just under an hour into the race. I had a great start – a great start – it was awesome."

“The sun was shining,”she added, “there was a buzz all around, all the helicopters were around and there was me in amongst all those boats. Yeah, the fleet is all levelling out now and I’m back to sort of where I should be, but look!” – she gestured behind her at the boats following Medallia – “still behind me!”

“It’s amazing, amazing…what an incredible couple of years, what an incredible few months I’ve got ahead of me – really, really I’m happy.”

Ed Gorman