For the duration of the Vendée Globe, Tip & Shaft will be decoding the weather and the trajectories of the 40 solo sailors, with Loïs Berrehar and Gaston Morvan, 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Solitaire du Figaro Paprec 2024, taking turns every other Friday. Gaston Morvan is at the helm this Friday.
“Since this morning, Charlie Dalin has entered the Pacific, passing south of Tasmania, with a lead of around 200 miles over his two pursuers, Sébastien Simon and Yoann Richomme. As Loïs had clearly explained last week, it was by attacking the first Indian low-pressure system, close to the ice zone, with Sébastien Simon, that he managed to make the break, where Yoann Richomme, Thomas Ruyant and others took a fairly northerly route. The gain wasn’t huge, but since this episode, Charlie has had success on his side, in the sense that it often starts from the front, he manages to get to the front of the small ridges of high pressure that set up on the road, he manages to dodge the bullets. Since the start of the race, he’s never stopped too much.
For the moment, we can say that he’s the boss, he’s making great trajectories, he’s always regular, it’s clean, fluid, he’s committed and takes risks when he has to, and conversely, he knows how to preserve his boat when conditions require it. I saw his video this morning, clean-shaven, smiling all the way to his ears, he doesn’t seem to have any dark circles – it’s hard to make a face lie, he looks great, I even thought he looked like he’d left yesterday! Which is less the case with the others, who look more tired.
Being out in front has enabled him to gradually pull away from Seb Simon – even if the gap isn’t huge – who has also been handicapped by the loss of his starboard foil, although for the moment it’s not too penalizing. Now, it must be a bit hard psychologically for Sébastien, because until now, he was in a state of mind and in a position to play for victory, but now he’s well aware that it’s going to be hard to win the Vendée Globe. While the loss of his foil isn’t a big disadvantage downwind – we can see that he’s managing to keep up a good speed – in reaching situations, at the front of a front on flat seas and in 20-25 knots of wind, a situation that will unfortunately arise for him, he risks losing a great deal by no longer being able to lean on his broken foil. Perhaps this will encourage him to take more risks in terms of strategy, especially as the game still seems to be wide open as far as the Horn.
Behind, we can expect a very big break between third-placed Yoann Richomme and his pursuers. Yoann’s on a bit of a knife-edge, but I think he’ll manage not to get sucked into the ridge of high pressure we’re seeing building behind him this weekend, so he should be able to get through the drops and stay in the same system as Charlie and Seb.
The situation should even be favorable to him by the middle of next week, as the routing above shows that he could close to within 60 miles of Charlie, compared with 250 today. The reason for this? Charlie will have a longer route, with a lot of gybes, whereas Yoann will be coming from behind with a more favorable weather system and a more direct route.
Thomas Ruyant, on the other hand, can’t get through and will be stuck in a ridge of high pressure for the next few days. He now has to wait for the next front to arrive, which looks set to be very strong, but he’ll no doubt be caught by Jérémie Beyou and Nico Lunven, or even the group of three behind, with Sam Goodchild, Paul Meilhat and Yannick Bestaven. It’s going to be a great match between these six boats.
At the rear of the fleet, too, there’s some strategic play, particularly in the daggerboard pack – even if there are a few foilers in the bunch – with different options, between Tanguy Le Turquais and Louis Duc to the south, Jean Le Cam to the north and Benjamin Ferré in a slightly intermediate position. We can see that Jean has tried to escape the lows by lengthening the route to the north, and in the end, he’s done well. From my routing (see above), I have the impression that the routes will converge over the next few days. Jean won’t have much choice but to head down towards the ice zone, but he’ll be able to do so on one tack in fairly moderate winds, in manageable conditions that will enable him to make good averages, whereas Tanguy will be going slower as he’ll have to gybe along the ice zone in strong winds.
By the time they reach the ice zone, probably on Tuesday, Jean will have a lead of around 150-200 miles over Benjamin and Tanguy, who is also handicapped by technical problems, as we’ve seen with his unusable “mule” (small headsail) and his J2, which he had to repair, and which is a handicap downwind in strong winds.
Jean is running his business well, he doesn’t seem to have any technical worries, and we can also see that his boat is going very fast compared to the other daggerboard Imoca boats, often reaching speeds in excess of 20 knots, speeds that his rivals find more difficult to reach. Which makes sense, given that his Raison design is some fifteen years older than the others. When you see how Class40 performance has evolved over the last five years with the new hulls, you find the same phenomenon for Imoca dinghies. Now, the battle between all these boats will continue, and it’s just as interesting to follow as that between the leading boats.
On the subject of damage, we can see that those most affected, whether in front or behind, are those who have chosen the most demanding routes in the Indian Ocean – Seb Simon, Tanguy Le Turquais, Guirec Soudée, Antoine Cornic… The experience of a Jean Le Cam, who chooses to preserve his boat, is bound to be an advantage over the rookies. And a breakage in the Southern Ocean can quickly become a major problem to deal with, as Tanguy’s images of him climbing the mast to repair his J2 show… it’s a mission!
You’ll tell me that Charlie is the perfect counter-example, because he’s the one who attacked the most in the Indian Ocean, and so far, he’s doing well, but it’s worth pointing out that he has a lot more experience of Imoca racing, he’s already done the Vendée Globe and, above all, he has a big team behind him. For the moment, we’re seeing that skippers with big teams and the budgets that go with them have few major problems. To be confirmed in the coming weeks!”
Photo: Jean-Louis Carli / Défi Azimut
