Heading for first place

Newly into second having averaged 20 knots for the last six hours, a frenzied Alex Thomson calls us from on board

"Last six hours - 5 to 11 - I averaged 19.59 knots. Not bad eh? and this boat can go faster," Alex Thomson enthuses the moment we pick up the phone to him.

The 1100 position reports from today have seen his Open 60 AT Racing overtake Mike Golding on Ecover to take second place overall. Now he has Vincent Riou on the Vendee Globe winner PRB in his sites.

"I was 20 miles behind Mike at 0500. I am now 22 miles ahead of him and I am now 48 miles behind PRB. It’s insane. That move I made 3.5 days ago. When I did it I thought everyone would think I was completely insane to do this - to gybe and spend 12 hours making no distance to the finish. In the end the weather has done exactly what it has expected to do and I have managed to stay in this amount of pressure almost exactly."

At present Thomson has 32 knots of breeze from the SSE and is sailing on starboard gybe in 115-120deg TWA. "That is really hot on this boat. The boat has been bedded down for a couple of days like this. I have got all the weight as far back as I can. I’m trying to keep my ropes in the boat. The cockpit fills up with water on every single wave. The ropes come out of the pockets and they go over the side or what is worse is that they go down the cockpit drains and you can’t get them out when you’re doing 20 knots! It’s a nightmare..."

Thomson reckons the wind will continue the favour his side of the course until midnight tonight. "There is a bit of a gain for me here, because I am still in the west I need to make a certain number of miles to the east, so I am actually sailing high of the mark at the moment, just to make sure I don’t fall out of the pressure. If I sit in a trough, then I’ll head further east, if it climbs I’ll head further north. The most important thing is not to lose this pressure and the next most important thing is to get in front of PRB."

This situation looks set to take them all the way to the La Rochelle finish line . "A low pressure will form over the Azores and that will bring us all the way home. Whatever happens PRB and I are going to end up within 10-15 miles of each other when we converge and we will be in for an almighty drag race all the way home. And the great thing for me is that I have just done four days of this. I am so comfortable with this. I am happy to sleep - the other night I did 22 miles in one hour..."

This drag race Thomson feels confident he can win: "These are her conditions. The drag race home is where she excels and I am more than happy to push."

For his latest 20 knot average six hourly run he was under solent and a single reef. He has since changed down again, worried about how his Incidences carbon D4 solent will continue to stand up.

Aside from turning out to be a winning move tactically heading west has also be a good training opportunity, Thomson says.

"Before I got into the pressure I was conscious of getting to that depression as quickly as possible. I had the big kite up and it got up to 20 knots so I put up the fractional, which was unusually conservative of me, and I did that and this big squall came along with 35 knots of breeze. With 460sqm of sail up, I didn’t get to the helm in time and she broached and ripped the tack off the asymmetric.

"Fortunately I had thought about how to get it down in a bit of a rush and I got it back to the cockpit and within five minutes it was down the hatch. So after that I put the Code 5 up - I’ve had that up a lot of the time and after I gybed about 100 miles into the depression I was doing a bit of filming for APP in the cockpit and I thought - 'I’ll go up to the mast'. So I did and I thought ‘okay, now I’ll go up to the trinquette, so I went up there and knelt down and clipped on to the stay there, hands round the stay filming at the bow. And the boat went down the mine and broached while I was about 6ft from the bow. So green water over the deck, the boat goes into a broach and I’ve got it all on film!
"It wasn’t a massive broach, but I snapped a piece of spectra on the Code 5. It’s funny, - I rolled the Code 5 away and I thought about putting it up again and I thought 'no, I’ll pull the Solent on'. And 15 minutes later I had 45 knots of wind. So I do feel I have been looked down upon favourably. I’ve had a bit of bad luck, but on the whole it has been really good. And I am still making a lot of mistakes. It is so nice for me to be able to think that with all the mistakes I am making I can be quick."

Having been sailing in the big conditions for a few days now, Thomson is now taking it completely in his stride. "I am getting enough sleep. I am not tired. I feel energetic all the time. I am not eating as much as I did on the doublehanded, anywhere near. I know when I am going down. I think the nervous excitement of the last couple of days doesn’t make you really want to eat very much. I’ve not forced myself, but I’ve been quite sensible about it."

Having passed the Cape Verdes, the temperature is now dropping and Thomson says that today has been the first day he has put oilskins on. Prior to this he has been happy with just a pair of swimming trunks, although we understand this is not his famous Union Jack thong.

"It’s good. I am really enjoying this. And it’s good training for the Southern Ocean."