Difficult weekend

Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson's take on the latest in the Vendee Globe

It has been a really tough weekend for Bernard Stamm who has diverted to the Kerguelen Islands due to damaged rudder bearings. Unfortunately the conditions on arrival were horrendous and according to the VG website Stamm’s boat has run aground and the skipper was taken off. This really is awful news and I just hope that the boat is not damaged. Dominique Warve has been able to help Bernard as his race finished last week with a broken keel and he is currently in the Kerguelen Islands as well. It sounds like Dominique’s problem is very similar to mine in the Velux 5 Ocean’s where I was forced to abandon the boat. Fortunatlely Dominique was only 150Nm from the Kerguelen Islands and was able to make it to shelter.

I spent a few days last week at the World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco which seemed to be very productive and it was there that I heard the news about Loick Peyron losing his mast, a real shame as Loick was another well prepared entry and was always pushing the leaders. Earlier in the week Unai Basurko also announced his retirement bringing the number of boats out of the race up to 9, nearly a third of the fleet. I would expect to see another 4 or 5 boats retire and remember we are not even halfway yet!

Conditions at the front of the field are getting fruity again as another depression approaches. The lead group has spread out nicely now with JP Dick dominating as he did in the Barcelona World Race with Mike Golding in a great 2nd place and sailing really well. Mike is just over 70Nm from the leader which is only 3-4 hours in the conditions that they are sailing in right now. Behind Mike is Bilou on Veolia and Foncia who has slipped back a few miles and is now over 100Nm behind. A week ago the top 10 boats were within 250Nm from each other, now this has grown to 350nm and we can expect this to grow further.

The lead group are just approaching the West Australia Gate and should be sailing in a building NW wind which is ahead of the next low pressure to hit the fleet. We can expect the lead group to sail on port gybe until the front cross them and then to gybe on to starboard and head south in the cold conditions to the west of the front. It will get windy with sustained winds of 35 knots with some big gusts and I am sure that the Skippers will be thinking of survival especially given the carnage of the weekend.