Fleet concertinas

Defi Atlantique becomes Defi Bay of Biscay

Positions at 0500GMT

Pos	Skipper	Boat	Latitude	Longitude	DTF	DTL
1	Vincent RIOU	PRB	N433836	W0110096	480.5	0
2	Mike GOLDING	Ecover	N440287	W0110618	492.4	11.9
3	Alex THOMSON	AT Racing	N440080	W0110936	493.6	13.1
4	Sébastien JOSSE	VMI	N440976	W0111248	499.7	19.2
5	Nick MOLONEY	Team Cowes	N434020	W0130152	567.1	86.6
6	Joe SEETEN	Arcelor Dunkerque	N422624	W0151280	669.1	188.6
7	Benoît LEQUIN	Wel.network	N364200	W0224224	1135.3	654.8
8	Benoît PARNAUDEAU	Colibri - Charente-Maritime	N342868	W0243295	1289.3	808.8
9	Anne LIARDET	Gonna-Gitcha	N284888	W0254884	1581.8	1101.3
10	Jean Pierre DICK	Virbac	N230740	W0322584	2070.4	1589.9

As the image above shows, the last 24 hours hours have seen the race course turn into a parking lot for the front runners in the Defi Atlantique, allowing the chasing pack to make dramatic inroads as they wallow off Cape Finistere. An N-S oblong-shaped area of high pressure system is blocking the way to the La Rochelle finish line.

Vincent Riou on PRB is hanging on to his lead but in the 12 hours from 1700 yesterday to 0500 this morning had made only 42 miles. In the fickle conditions Mike Golding and Vincent Riou have been pushing extra hard overnight at the cost of Alex Thomson on AT Racing who has dropped back to third place, albeit just a mile astern of Golding. Seb Josse on VMI is also back in contention.

The high looks set to retreat over Europe over the course of today influenced by two depressions out in the Atlantic. This will cause the breeze to build from the left hand side of the course, benefitting Nick Moloney on Team Cowes first. However although he has made considerable gains on the leaders too, Moloney is running out of race track and it is unlikely that this will be enough of a boost for him to catch up the 67 miles his fellow Jules Verne record holder Seb Josse on VMI.

Yesterday prior to taking second place Golding reported: "I'm just doing the best I can. I'm pushing left, trying to go round them ( PRB & AT Racing). Anything is still possible - this is yacht racing. If I can get it down to 20 miles, which could be doable by the corner, it gives you the Bay of Biscay to catch them - so long as it stays upwind it's not impossible. I'm actually having a nice relaxing day, making the boat go, and just had sausages, onions and a glass of wine. It is really quite pleasant. The sea's quite flat and I still have 10 knots of breeze. The boat's tramping along at 12-13 knots. It looks like there's a whole around the leaders, which I'm just skinning the edge of. VMI have come further out and could potentially miss by a good margin. We'll see."