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.
“One of today’s news items is that Yoann Richomme’s team announced this Friday morning that he had lost his J0. It’s obviously a handicap, because it’s one less card for him, but it’s not the sail that’s going to predominate until the finish line either. The J0 is used for reaching in medium winds and for reaching and upwind sailing in light airs. He may just need it at the very end of the race between the tip of Brittany and Les Sables d’Olonne in calmer winds.
On the other hand, Yoann took a long time to recover the sail, so he lost a bit on this one, and whatever happens, this damage puts Charlie more in a comfort zone. Even though we never rejoice in other people’s misfortunes, he must have taken the news in a good way. I’m not familiar with everyone’s communication strategies, but I have the impression that the Paprec Arkéa team has been transparent on this issue. I’m not sure that Charlie’s team would have communicated on this damage otherwise.
With less than 1,500 miles to go to the finish, the weather scenario is not very open in terms of strategy. Charlie and Yoann will gradually leave the high-pressure pattern they’re currently experiencing, crossing the ridge of high pressure linked to the Azores anticyclone, to find themselves ahead of a front, under the influence of a low-pressure system which will push them towards Vendée in ideal conditions, downwind on flat seas with a good twenty knots of breeze (see routing below).
The only uncertainty concerns the positioning of the ridge of high pressure that awaits them at the very end in the Bay of Biscay and over Brittany. At the end of the weekend, we’ll know whether Yoann has one last chance to attack, with a route that could be quite different from the one that takes him towards the Iroise Sea before heading back down towards Les Sables: it’s a more direct trajectory, with stronger winds, but upwind, and it won’t venture into western Brittany (see routing below). Today, it’s not the route favoured by the routing, but depending on how the situation develops between now and the end of the weekend, it’s likely to open up, which could be an opportunity for Yoann to try and make up lost ground.
Now, given the conditions they’ve got, the priority is to go fast. On paper, we know that Paprec Arkéa performs better downwind VMG in strong winds, and as we’re going to have to sail low, Yoann may have a little more advantage there, I think he would have been even more favored in heavy seas, which won’t be the case as they’re at the front of a front. And Charlie has shown in this Vendée Globe that even downwind VMG in strong winds, he’s still there. We wondered before the race how he would compete with the Koch-Finot-Conq designs in these conditions, but I have the impression that he was never really dominated.
After that, what can play a role on this fast tack is the choice of sails, the average speeds can be very different depending on what you decide to use. Will they hold the big gennaker, which is quite high up in the range in 20-30 knots of wind? It can be a bit scary for Charlie to end up in the coal, at the risk of breaking, knowing that Yoann is bound to attack behind. The pressure is naturally on Charlie, especially as Yoann is a bit of a “bête noire” for him, but now he’s got all the cards in his hand and I think he knows what he’s doing – after all, he’s already crossed the Vendée Globe line first once!
I don’t know how he manages it in his head, but in my opinion, the key is not to project yourself onto victory and the finish, but really to play hour by hour, day by day until he sees Vendée land, as he’s done so well so far. Just because you’ve got four days left in the race doesn’t mean you have to change everything, stop sleeping. On the contrary, he’s going to need all his wits about him right to the end to avoid making any mistakes. Somehow, at the very end of the race, Charlie’s main adversary is himself.
You’re probably wondering about the famous ETA at Les Sables? It’s not so obvious, with this last ridge of high pressure, but so far, I can see Charlie arriving on Tuesday 14th around noon and Yoann a dozen hours later. That would mean a time of 65 days, 9 short of the record! It’s a pretty crazy time, a big gain on Armel’s time in 2016, due of course to the boats’ level of performance, which has increased considerably over the last eight years, but also to their reliability. With a more favorable descent of the North Atlantic, we could have gained another day or two, but for the leaders, everything has gone perfectly from a weather point of view since the Indian Ocean.
In any case, we can’t really talk about being surprised to see these two finish in the lead. About fifteen of us Figaro friends made predictions before the start on an Excel spreadsheet, and 80% of us put them in the top two places, just like everyone else! They’re skippers who’ve done a lot of Figaro racing at a very high level before switching to big Imoca projects, which gave them the time and means to prepare well for their Vendée Globe. And on the race, they only confirmed this. In terms of pace management and strategy, they made very few mistakes, so they ticked all the boxes to be in with a chance of winning.
The real surprise is Seb Simon, who few thought would be on the podium, and who I can see arriving on the 17th or 18th. We were talking about him recently with François Gabart, and we were saying how impressive he’d been since the start of the race. It’s almost a little frustrating not to see what he could have done against Charlie and Yoann if he’d finished with his two foils. In any case, hats off to him!
Further on, there’s a big battle for fourth place, with a group of seven who have been sticking together and are finally getting back into trade winds. The climb back up the South Atlantic was particularly challenging for them, as it took them a long time to escape the Cabo Frio cold front zone. Nicolas Lunven, who was shifted to the east to try and get a better angle to attack the trade winds, lost the most. In this group, Thomas Ruyant and Boris Herrmann both lost their J2. That’s a real disadvantage in trade wind conditions. Without a J2, you don’t necessarily have the optimum angles, and it’s a difficult sail to replace. Some have a small gennaker that can do the trick, otherwise you go under J3, but you quickly unbalance the boat and don’t have the same power to seek flight and accelerate.
According to my routing, Sam Goodchild will cross the equator on Monday morning, and Nico in the early evening. After that, it’s hard to predict, but I can see a front blocking their path after the equator, so we can expect a good fight all the way to the finish! We’ll have time to talk about them – and the others – in the next column. In the meantime, we’ll be getting ready to head to Les Sables to welcome Charlie and Yoann, so have a great weekend!”
