Vendee Globe - 1230 - 8/2/01

Mark Chisnell reports as Jourdain and Thiercelin are trapped

Thursday February 8th 2001, Author: Mark Chisnell, Location: United Kingdom
Weather at 1700, 9/2/01We talked yesterday about Thiercelin's strategy of heading west to try to get through the centre of the high and be first into the new breeze, and it is starting to look like this could really spice up the final miles for these two.

Looking at the forecast for Friday afternoon (above), the high will continue its passage east quite quickly, pushed out of the way by another big low pressure, that will also speed the leaders home.

Thiercelin will be released by the high pressure and get into the new breeze first - the question is whether or not the extra hours of wind will make up for all those extra miles.

He's currently over 300 miles behind Jourdain, that's a days sailing in the new wind. It looks as though Thiercelin needs the high to move more slowly than is forecast. But it will be intriguing to see how this final podium place plays out over the next couple of days as these two converge on Les Sables d'Olonne.

Fleet at 0000, 8/2/01

Behind the leading group of four, the next five boats are strung out across the Equator, in trade winds and Doldrums. The battle for fifth between Thomas Coville (orange) and Dominique Wavre (dark brown) remains incredibly tight at just three miles, with Catherine Chabaud (yellow) still on her own over 400 miles behind them.

Golding (royal blue) has built a 300 mile lead over fellow Brit Josh Hall (purple) in the last couple of days, as Hall has got himself pinned on the Brazilian coastline. He's been forced to beat up round the corner towards Recife, and is bleeding miles all over the South Atlantic.

But Golding has plenty of problems of his own. Apart from the jury-rigged starboard shroud that's going to take a pounding as he heads through the north-east trades, he is also low on fuel. There are no more updates from Golding as he observes a self-imposed communications black-out to conserve power. He's particularly anxious to have enough juice left to fire up his navigation lights as he heads into the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic, and who can blame him!

Click for new window with link to Virtual SpectatorMap images courtesy of Virtual Spectator, click here to go to the VS site.

Please note that two different methods of calculating the Distance to Finish are being used, one by Virtual Spectator and one by the Vendee Globe Race Office, we will try to always make it clear which we are using!

Link to the madforsailing form guide.

Rankings (0900 GMT except where stated, Thursday 8/2, with Distances to Finish from Race Office)

1 PRB (Desjoyeaux) 40.18N 16.47W 752 nm
2 Kingfisher (MacArthur) 38.4N 20.4W +199 nm
3 SILL Matines La Potagère (Jourdain) 31N 30.5W +876 nm
4 Active Wear (Thiercelin) 31.1N 39.2W +1208 nm
5 Sodebo (Coville) 16N 33.5W +1680 nm
6 Union Bancaire Privée (Wavre) 16.1N 34W +1683 nm
7 Whirlpool (Chabaud) 9.2N 34.5W +2070 nm
8 Team Group 4 (Golding) (at 00:00 GMT) 4.2S 32W +2721 nm
9 EBP EspritPME Gartmore (Hall) (at 00:51 GMT) 8.1S 34.5W +3000 nm
10 Voila.fr (Gallay) (at 00:01 GMT) 12.2S 34.1W +3200 nm
11 VM Matériaux (Carpentier) (at 00:00 GMT) 16.6S 35.4W +3518 nm
12 Nord Pas de Calais - Chocolats du Monde (Seeten) (at 00:00 GMT) 18S 35W +3576 nm
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