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10:52 PM Fri 23 Jan 2009 GMT
Frustrated but never appearing bitter, Roland Jourdain has managed to maintain much more solid average speeds today, consistently between 10 and 11 knots on Veolia Environnement as he feels his way into more settled, consistent NE'ly trade winds. That said they are lighter than those winds which the leader Desjoyeaux had at the equivalent time..
Having now lead for more than half of this Vend?e Globe now - 38 days out of the 75 that this epic sixth edition has run - Desjoyeaux today rued the fact that he has not been able to enjoy more prolonged, front line battle at either end of this course. Now, realistically, two days ahead, he would enjoy nothing more than to emerge on top in Les Sables d'Olonne, skirmishing with a posse of adversaries to the finish, but circumstances have conspired against him.
Jourdain is a friend of Desjoyeaux from way back, part of a gang which included Jean Le Cam in their late teenage years, all sharing the same ambitions.
When Bilou found a 6.50 Mini boat in the mud near Concarneau and set out to use it to compete in the Mini-Transat, Mich' Desj' was one of the first to volunteer and help him prepare for what proved an ill-fated campaign.
They were crew-mates on Cr?dit Agricole in the Round Europe tour before joining up together with Eric Tabarly on the Maxi Cote d'Or, on the 1985 Whitbread Round the World Race, crossing the Equator and Rounding Cape Horn together for the first time.
Desjoyeaux can afford to take it easy to face the seas that are still rough from the effect of the trade winds blowing above thirty knots last night. Still a few more squalls with strong gusts, but the wind is gradually veering easterly, which should allow the leader to sail with the wind on the beam at more than 15 knots. On a course heading north-north west (345?) rather than due north, he can avoid some of the slamming, which is putting a lot of pressure on the rigging and stopping the skipper from sleeping. In fact, the final course to head for Les Sables resembles a large parabola.
This weekend, he will be changing course gradually to come around to the north at the latitude of the Canaries (28? North) then gradually slide north-eastwards as the wind comes around to the SW. Once the islands are on his beam, he will change course again to head for the Bay of Biscay while probably trying to keep away from the continental shelf and its dangerous seas off Cape Finisterre.
Jourdain is not at all in the same weather system and has lost more ground since coming out of the Doldrums. He can now benefit from a NE'ly trade wind blowing at around 15 knots, which should strengthen, but meanwhile he has lost another 70 miles to the leader today. At the Equator, the skipper of Veolia Environnement was 2 days 03 h 16 minutes behind, but he may well add another half a day to that by the finish if we look at the forecasts, which are less favourable for him. He is nevertheless set to improve on the time set in 2004 by Vincent Riou (87d 10h 47' 55'').
That will not be the case for Armel Le Cl?ac'h currently in third place. The skipper of Brit Air could not see any clouds signifying the approach to the Doldrums this morning, but they were there just twenty or thirty miles ahead of him. He is not likely to be slowed as much as the two frontrunners, as there are fewer squalls, but the zone is wider and he will probably take more time to get across. The gap of 500 miles between Armel Le Cl?ac'h and Roland Jourdain is set to increase to 700 or more.
Marc Guillemot has been dodging the busy traffic off the Brasilian coast. The Safran skipper this morning reported that he had a tiring night, looking out for fishing boats, ships and oil rigs, but he has profited from his passage so close to the beach - just 30 miles off the shore this morning - and has pulled away again from Sam Davies, who this afternoon was struggling to make three knots in very unstable and capricious NE'ly winds. She has lost more than 70 miles in the last 36 hours and is more than 167 miles behind Safran.
Brian Thompson has maintained the upper hand among the group of three. His progress may have slowed periodically but he has had a decent spell with no repairs to make, and has had a generally good, favorable passage up the South Atlantic since he left the Island de los Esados by Cape Horn. He has Bahrain Team Pindar over half a knot quicker than Dee Caffari's Aviva this afternoon and now leads her by 74 miles and has Sam Davies now 481 miles ahead. Arnaud Boissi?res, the third of the trio, has found his enforced westwards course to be slow, making between 3.5 and 4.5 knots.
Steve White on Toe in the Water is relishing the relief from the upwind slog, form conditions which are unpleasant and less productive for his older Finot-Conq design. But, freed this afternoon he has been enjoying some faster, reaching conditions as tries to pull back more miles on Boissi?res ahead of him in eighth.
As for Rapahel Dinelli and Norbert Sedlacek, at their pace they will not have reached Cape Horn, when the winner is reaching the harbour in Vend?e, as happened in previous editions of the race with Jean-Fran?ois Coste in 1990, Jean-Yves Hasselin in 1993, Catherine Chabaud in 1997, Pascale di Gregorio in 2001, Karen Leibovici in 2005.
Steve White, GBR, (Toe in the Water): 'It's been more upwind than it has been forecast to be, it is pretty painful really from the North East and just in the wind range this boat does not really like, sort of 20-22 knots until the staysail really gets hold and so 23 knots and above it is not so bad. But, yes it has been pretty grim, slamming away into a short sea. We are reaching now but we have some big clouds which are messing the breeze about a bit, but we are heading in the right direction.'
' It looks like a low is going to pop up on the Brasilian coast which is going to give me more wind if I am not careful but it seems like guesswork down here. The forecasts seem to change on a daily basis.'
'It is all completely new to me down here. What I was recommended to do by various people was to route myself around the world in the preceding winters and see what sort of job I did of it, but I just never had the time with doing so many other things to keep home and family afloat and hang on to the boat, and raise sponsorship and that sort of thing.
'When the whole thing is finished and when all is said and done I am sure I will be happy with my race but at the moment, it is just the sort of person I am, then I am never satisfied, particularly with my own performance.'
Dee Caffari, GBR, (AVIVA):' Brian has just rung me and Sam sent me a message and so it has been a very sociable day so far and I finally have the breeze and so I am a happy bunny, It was a really light night and probably about nine this morning the wind started to fill in and since then I have good boatspeed and am pointing in the right direction and so that is a good birthday present. I spoke with Brian and I said it was not so nice to make the gap so big and he just said well get move on and catch up and so that is what I have been doing. He may want to get away but I am not going to let him. My special treats today I got a chocolate sponge cake and a bottle of Diet Coke.
Michel Desjoyeaux, (Foncia):'For sure I would appreciate to have a fight with other competitors. Veolia was more stuck in the Doldrums than I was so he is now quite far behind. In fact the communications you see show 500 miles but he will have to follow in my course so in fact it is more like 700 miles and so that is quite a long way from me now. And that is quite a big gap when you are less than 3000 miles from the finish.
More enjoyable this time because I know more than I did in 2000-2001 but sometimes I could have appreciated to have more of a race and less just sailing, but if you look at the skippers and the boats which have been back in the harbour for the last two and a half months it just shows that the Vendee Globe is a very hard race, the Southern Oceans are not something which are simple or friendly.
Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) (from French): I'm now doing about 16 knots and a bit less when the wind drops off. I'm not too worried about the weather conditions. The seas are heavy and cross with several swell formations. The boat is being shaken around a lot. The wind has eased off somewhat. I went from staysail to small jib before going to bed and that was just as well as the wind strengthened a bit during the night. Right up until this morning we had 25-30 knots with stronger gusts in squalls. That allowed me to get some well deserved rest in between quick looks outside. We're losing a degree in temperature per day and last night I put on an extra layer to sleep. The main swell is from the left of the wind with a wind at 60-70 to 90? and a swell from 60?. The boat is being tossed around and slamming. I got a bit annoyed the other day because I couldn't find an angle to help the boat through the waves. I'm now at 90-100? to the wind, so it should be better, but in spite of that, the behaviour of the boat means it is not very comfortable. It's one of those places you have to get through, so I might well get through sooner by accelerating a bit.
The boat isn't really that much lighter as out of the 200 kilos of food I still have around a hundred left. And I have 30 litres of fuel left out of 190 litres from the start. So that means she is only 200kg lighter than at the start.
The boat is doing OK, in spite of being tossed around, but there isn't much choice about that. She seems to be coping well, so I feel for her when she slams into a wave, but she appears to be able to deal with it. I've added a little more ballast and that seems to make the movements less violent.'
Roland Jourdain (V?olia Environnement):'The suffering is rather different now, but I shan't be forgetting the Doldrums. They really messed around with me. Before yesterday, I had some good news, when the NW'ly wind started to pick up. I was making good headway, but then this dark cloud that I had just passed got around me again later in the day. Then I had a squall, the squall of all squalls. You couldn't see more than 50 centimetres in front of you - sheer hell! I kept asking myself what I had done to deserve that. There was lightning and everything. Then when the wind gets up again every hour and drops off again. it drives you crazy! I'd really like someone to give me some classes in the weather I had in the Doldrums. I had an idea of the theory, but really I'd like some detailed explanations. It was really amazing, because, there were no squalls, and all of a sudden it went black and just poured down.. Since the wind returned yesterday, I've been sailing upwind and have reduced the sails. Mich' was talking about a roller-coaster ride. Well, I think I'm on it now!'
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