Offshore Racing Update
Since we last checked in on the Vendée Globe nonstop solo race more than a week ago, the seven-boat pack at the head of the fleet has focused itself and intensified into a two-boat duel for the lead. Now raging across the Indian Ocean well ahead of record pace, Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss and Armel Le Cléac’h on Banque Populaire VIII have established themselves as the most likely heirs to François Gabart’s crown. Morgan Lagravière on SAFRAN and Vincent Riou on PRB — both previously sailing in the top five — have both retired into Cape Town due to collision-related damage.
Sébastien Josse sails alone in third place nearly 700 miles behind the leaders, having fallen off the same weather system as the two leaders. Roughly 500 miles behind Josse, one of the most thrilling battles in the fleet continues with Jérémie Beyou on Maître Coq and Paul Meilhat on SMA — sisterships from the last Vendée Globe, though Maître Coq now has foils — drag racing within miles of each another in fourth and fifth place.
When Alex Thomson passed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope last Thursday he not only entered the Indian Ocean, he set a new record from Les Sables d’Olonne to the Cape of Good Hope with a time of just 18 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes, knocking nearly five days off Armel Le Cléac’h’s record time from the last Vendée Globe. Even more impressive is that Thomson had reportedly broken his starboard foil on an unidentified floating object days earlier, yet maintained his lead for another five days and is still managing to stay on Banque Populaire’s heels — the duo was separated by just a dozen miles as of this writing — in what has become a two-boat drag race reminiscent of the last Vendée Globe, in which François Gabart and Armel Le Cléac’h battled around the world before finishing just three hours apart.
Elsewhere in the Southern Ocean, Thomas Coville on Sodebo Ultim’, currently passing south of New Zealand, is more than 1,100 miles ahead of Francis Joyon’s solo round-the-world record. Joyon, meanwhile, has abandoned his attempt at the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest fully-crewed circumnavigation after weather conditions proved less than ideal to break the record. His trimaran, IDEC Sport, will sail back to France and wait for another weather window suitable to break Banque Populaire V’s five-year-old record. If the predicted weather window holds up, the team will leave almost immediately after arriving back in France.
Elsewhere in the offshore racing world, the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Transatlantic Race from Lanzarote to Grenada is well underway with the MOD70 Phaedo3 leading the way over her modified-to-foil sistership Maserati. Both boats took wildly different routing options shortly after the start, with the more traditional southerly option paying dividends for Phaedo. The lead monohull is Mike Slade’s 100-ft Farr Leopard.