Solidaire du Chocolat: Reroll of the dice

mare loses the lead but should be first through the dying front

Solidaire du Chocolat charts courtesy of Expedition/Tasman Bay Navigation Systems

Positions at 0830 UTC:

The leader in the Solidaire du Chocolat has been chopping and changing over the last 24 hours. As anticipated the long term leaders on mare lost the lead at the lunchtime yesterday to Stéphane Le Diraison and Adrien Hardy on Agir Recouvrement-Bureau Veritas, with mare winning it back mid-afternoon, before race favourites Yannick Bestaven and Eric Drouglazet on Aquarelle.com were in front yesterday evening. However in the two scheds so far this morning former Mini sailors Sébastien Rogues and Bertrand Delesne on Eole Generation-GDF Suez had taken command...

There is also now a monster lateral split across the race course - among the lead group there is 170 miles between mare in the north and Tanguy de Lamotte and Jean Galfione on Initiatives-Alex Olivier in the south, while bringing up the rear there is more than 400 miles between Groupe Picoty in the north and Transport Coherence in the south.

The reason for the changing lead is that the boats are in the process of going through a transition phase. In the north mare is just encountering a weak dying front before she will head south again in the northwesterlies off the southeastern lobe of the giant high currently parked off the USA's eastern seaboard. She will get through this transition first. Meanwhile the boats to the south are still making good progress in the southerlies associated with the high currently shrinking away to the northeast over the UK (hence sunshine in London) and have yet to reach the transition zone. The boats in the south will have the advantage that with the front dying, so the transition will be shorter and they should have a faster passage into the northerlies to the west, at the expense of having to sail more miles.

Watch this space