Newbie leader

From the Equator Alex Thomson tells us about his first solo race in an Open 60 and how he took the lead in it...

Alex Thomson sounds quite chirpy when we speak to him and understandably so. At the time of our conversation he had just learned that he had overtaken Jean-Pierre Dick on the Farr-designed Virbac to take pole position in the Defi Atlantique - his first solo race.

Just north of the equator the conditions have been getting increasingly Doldrums-like on top of the gradient breeze. "The weather conditions are all over the shop," Thomson recounts. "At the moment I’ve got a southeasterly breeze of about 20 knots. An hour ago I had an easterly breeze of about 35 knots. I went through the biggest squall I think I’ve ever been through in my life. You sit there and wait for it and you think 'it’ll finish soon' - and it never did. So I got all the sails down, put the reefs in put the Solent away and as soon as you do that the breeze has gone. It has been like that all day.

"It is almost exactly like the Doldrums, but with lots of pressure. There is always a constant gradient of 15-20 knots. Then a big cloud will come along and smother you for an hour. This morning I had 38 knots and I got caught out with the full main and genniker up. So I got the genniker down and the squall passed and I had 20 knots again and I pulled the Solent out and the next thing I know is I’ve got 35 knots under solent and full main. So I’ve been going fast - not always in the right direction, but I have been going fast."

Thomson says he is surprised that Virbac has dropped back because they were in the same conditions. "I expect Mike [Golding on Ecover] or PRB will take the lead in terms of distance to go over the next sched and then we’ll have an interesting race up to the Cape Verde islands.

At present Thomson and Virbac appear to have taken a different tactical option from the rest of the fleet and are well to the northwest of the rest of the boats. "The plan for me was to leave Salvador, stay reasonably well off the coast and not to get sucked into the coast - I’ve done that before," he says. "And that went really well and once I got around the corner, the idea was to just head north. It looked good for the Doldrums at that point – it still doesn’t look bad. And then head up through the northeasterlies. So the further west you are the more east the breeze is and it is easier to go north than if you are further to the east. Then hopefully be the first to hook into the depressions."

Thomson says that the information he has seen indicate that the Doldrums won't present too much of a problem. The problem lies beyond that. "As we get further north at about 15-20degN there is a depression that is lurking around, and if you sail to the west you’ll get stuck in northerlies, and if you say too far to the east you’ll get stuck in a hole. The European models say it is going to happen and the American models say it is not going to happen."

On board he is having few problems that are affecting the boat's performance. The sails are okay although he is worried about his choice of using one of the boat's carbon 3DL headsails instead of the Cuben fibre one. "It seems to be holding up alright at the moment, but I can carry it a bit longer....

"Apart from that the main problem is that I have received two positions reports since I left. It is just atrocious, the whole thing is quite embarrassing. At this stage if they can’t poll people they should just call the skippers to get their position. I knew I was alright because I have been with Virbac the whole way, since the morning after the start."

The race to date for Thomson seems to have been a match race with Virbac. "She might have a tiny bit of speed on me, but I am really pleased to be able to stay with him. He [Jean-Pierre Dick] has done 15-20,000 miles on that boat."

Sailing up the coast of Brazil after the start they and PRB were headed and then put in a prolonged port tack out to sea. "We went out about 60 miles! And it was 'shall I tack? Shall I tack?' And finally I tacked and Virbac tacked on top of me and PRB tacked a couple of minutes later. I was surprised to pull away from PRB because I could see right up until a couple of days ago and then she just dropped right back."

Aside from the lack of positions Thomson says that there have been some minor comms and computer issues and the battery operating the keel is also being problematic. The ring frame near the transom which came unbonded during the TJV has been fixed and seems to be holding up well.

While some skippers were saying this race was merely a qualifier for next year's Vendee Globe, inevitably this seems not to be the case. Thomson says there have been occasions when he has tried to back off. "There have been a couple of times when I thought ‘come on, I need to get home, so just chill out a little bit’. But I am making so many mistakes, I am kicking myself every five minutes, but I am learning so much and I am thinking ‘what would Bilou do?’

"It is about getting to know your boat inside out so that you know what you can and can’t do. It was nice on the TJV, there were instances where we ended up in 40 knots with full main and the Solent. So when I get a squall of 36 knots coming through I know I don’t have to panic and roll the solent away, I can just ride it for a little bit and see what happens. It is thinks like that."

Aside from this Thomson says he has improved his sleep management and is having one square meal a day - mainly due to the intense heat. He says he'll increase this as they continue north.

It will be interesting to see over the next few days whether the west pays.

Below - a wet ride