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 to look back on the first few days of the race.
“Since the start, we’ve been experiencing a weather scenario that’s quite unheard of at this time of year, insofar as we’re often used to seeing boats setting off upwind, passing fronts, then reaching in very strong winds. In this case, it’s quite the opposite: we’ve had nothing but downwind conditions since the start. On the other hand, even though there was a squall last Sunday in Les Sables, the wind was quite strong, particularly when rounding Cape Finisterre and then along Portugal.
This scenario can be explained by the fact that the Azores anticyclone is not where it should be, resulting in a fixed situation, with an anticyclone in place over western Europe, which acts as a shield for the lows passing far to the north of Europe, resulting in northeasterly winds from the start. On the other hand, there’s a stationary Moroccan low-pressure system which has deepened off Gibraltar and brought strong winds. The frontrunners managed to escape it, unlike the rearrunners who were picked off a little as it swelled.
In these conditions, there was a great deal of play and competition, with several changes of leader: Charlie Dalin, Sam Goodchild, Yoann Richomme, Nicolas Lunven and Sam Goodchild again on Friday. Nicolas Lunven set a new solo 24-hour record (546.60 miles, at an average speed of 22.77 knots, compared with 540 miles set by Thomas Ruyant on Retour à La Base 2023).
Doing it like that, on the edge of a ridge of high pressure right from the start of the race, is impressive, and shows that the guys are on the attack. What made the difference was that, whereas the others opted to round Cape Finisterre using the site effect, which gave them a shorter trajectory but required them to gybe and reduce sail as they had up to 30-40 knots of wind, he chose to take the outside. So he had a lot less maneuvering to do, and did almost everything with the same sail, with a very long tack to do on flat seas and downwind at 130-140 degrees to the wind, which is the perfect angle for making good averages.
Since Cape Finisterre, they’ve had very unstable winds. In solo sailing, this is difficult to manage, because either you choose a conservative mode with less sails surface so as not to be surprised when the wind picks up, but that means you are too slow in light winds. Or, on the contrary, you’re in regatta mode, which means you have more sails when the strong wind kicks in but its is more risky. Up to 25 knots under gennaker and mainsail up, it’s fine, but beyond that, it starts to get dangerous, so you’re a bit on edge when conditions are so unstable.
It generates a lot of stress and fatigue on board, because you hardly sleep at all, you have to be on the lookout for variations, you’ve got alarms going off all the time, you’re constantly asking yourself whether you’ve got the right sail, you’ve got your nose on the satellite images to watch out for the next squall with a strong wind. I have the impression that quite a few sailors are already suffering, and we’ve already seen the first injuries, with Paul Meilhat and Maxime Sorel, who has just announced his retirement. It’s very hard for him, especially as he’s one of the sailors who has paid the most attention to his physical preparation and lifestyle. His ankle injury must be really hard to live with, and everyone’s thinking of him.
Looking at today’s fleet photo, we can see that the favourites are all there. With a first group of around ten boats and a gap between the most northerly, Thomas Ruyant, who was hampered by minor technical problems and no doubt wanted to look for lighter winds to repair his small water leak, and the most southerly, Sam Goodchild who I find very impressive since the start. He’s never the fastest, but he’s very precise on his trajectory and remarkably consistent.
From now on, the challenge for everyone is to decide on the best placement for tackling the Doldrums, which they are due to cross around Thursday 21st. Today, as there is no trade winds (see isobaric map above), since they have been broken by the Moroccan low, the direct route south is impossible, as the fleet finds itself under the effect of a high pressure system which is on its way and will be building towards the east. We can see that the frontrunners are beginning to slow down. Almost all of them have decided to head west, with VMG gains close to zero, in search of a gybe point on Saturday night, which will turn the wind to the right and allow them to descend.
The aim on this tack is to be careful not to get trapped in the light winds, so to keep an eye on the movement of the ridge of high pressure. We’ll see if the north or south position favors some more than others. Sam’s position looks pretty good to me, even if he may have a little less wind than Thomas to the north. Above all, these light air conditions should be more favourable to tighter hulls, like those of Sam or Charlie Dalin, than to boats designed for stronger winds, like the Koch-Finot-Conq designs of Thomas and Yoann Richomme.
After the gybe, they’ll have a not very strong east-north-easterly wind, so a reaching tack, but they shouldn’t get back into the real trade winds until Tuesday, which is probably when we’ll be able to start counting the points. 18° north is still a long way south for the first trade winds! Between now and then, they’ll have four days in less than 12 knots. This should enable the boats in the second pack to catch up, especially up to the gybe point. However, I don’t see a new start because, once they’re on the reaching tack, they’ll start again from the front. I’ve routed Clarisse Crémer, for example: where she’s currently 70 miles behind the head of the fleet, I can see her 120 miles behind at the entrance to the Doldrums. Now, it’s very hard to be precise about this, as it really depends on how the high pressure system swells.
As far as daggerboard boats are concerned, Benjamin Ferré confirms his potential, as he leads this unofficial ranking, and even manages to keep in touch with Sam Davies, Damien Seguin and Giancarlo Pedote, it’s a great performance! And as he has a lighter boat, easier to handle in light winds, he has the means to overtake them on this westerly tack, but as soon as they leave the transition zone and start reaching, he has no chance of competing with the foilers.
Finally, there’s another possible option, far to the east (the west and east routes are in blue on the image above), which for the moment only Jean Le Cam seems to be taking. This involves skirting the Mauritanian DST to pick up the fifteen-knot trade winds ahead of the others and head for Cape Verde. The risk, if the ridge of high pressure swells to the east, is to find yourself stopped, but also, once out of the zone of calms, to find yourself downwind, and therefore obliged to gybe a few times. But that’s undoubtedly why Jean Le Cam is taking this route: his boat is very much a VMG boat, and I can’t wait to see if he’ll go all out, given that he often likes to do things differently from the others. In any case, it’ll be really interesting to compare his position in the Doldrums with the other daggerboard boats. Verdict in a week’s time!”
Photo: Pierre Bouras
