Vendée Globe: Full attack

Dick’s last gate

Having had to retire from the last race with rudder damage, into New Zealand, Jean-Pierre Dick will be quietly satisfied to have checked off the final ice gate of the course, Pacific East, now and is also making excellent speed towards his sixth rounding of Cape Horn. JP is the quickest in the fleet this morning at 19kts and with a 431 miles 24-hour run has also covered the greatest distance.  His margin to the leaders is 352 miles this morning but he continues on a more direct course while the top two plunge more south. In fourth Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) is 581 miles behind Dick, 1.5 days at current speeds. Around 1000 miles astern Jean Le Cam (SynerCiel) is preparing to make the Pacific West gate which is 160 miles in front of him.

The other duel which is playing out in the fleet is that between the ‘senior’ skippers  Mike Golding (Gamesa) and Dominique Wavre (Mirabaud). Swiss skipper Wavre had closed to within seven miles of the Briton yesterday morning (in terms of distance to finish) but since their split on to opposite gybes for the early part of yesterday, it is Golding who is managing to re-establish the miles he lost, now restored to 30 miles ahead of Wavre this morning. Both are on port gybe in the same modest 15kts breeze. And behind them Javier ‘Bubi’ Sanso has a better wind angle than them and is fighting back hard after his mainsail headboard car repair cost him miles.

On the prowl

Since rejoining the race course two days ago Bernard Stamm (Cheminées Poujoulat) has been progressively building speed on his powerful Juan Kouyoumdjian design and is making progress in his quest to catch Arnaud Boissières (Akena Verandas).  The Swiss skipper made a spectacular comeback in the last race, albeit ill fated. After hitting a cargo ship on the first night in November 2008, Stamm restarted five days after the fleet had left Les Sables d’Olonne and was up to 12th place of the 30 starters when his race ended in the Kerguelen Islands when his boat ran aground whilst trying to anchor in a 45 knots gale. With a back catalogue of ill luck on this Vendée Globe,  Stamm has fire in his belly and is 85 miles behind Boissières but nearly two knots faster.

Photo JESUS RENEDO