Le Cam recovers fifth

Le Cam and Golding set for a breezy Vendee Globe finish with the Frenchman on a faster angle

Tuesday February 5th 2013, Author: James Boyd, Location: none selected

Following the arrival yesterday afternoon into Les Sables d'Olonne of keel-less Virbac Paprec 3 and her skipper Jean-Pierre Dick, so the fight is on for fifth place.

Image above courtesy of Expedition with GRIB files from Predictwind

Positions at 0800 UTC

Pos Skipper Boat Lat Long Spd Crs VMG Spd Dist DTF DTL
          1 hour aver     24hr aver      
1 François Gabart MACIF Finished: 27/01/2013 14:18:40 UTC Course time: 78d 02h 16m 40s          
2 Armel Le Cléac'h Banque Pop Finished: 27/01/2013 17:35:52 UTC Course time: 78d 05h 33m 52s          
3 Alex Thomson Hugo Boss Finished: 30/01/2013 07:25:43 UTC Course time: 80d 19h 23m 43s          
4 Jean-Pierre Dick Virbac Finished: 04/02/2013 15:05:40 UTC Course time: 86d 03h 03m 40s          
5 Jean Le Cam SynerCiel 46°02.99'N 11°53.89'W 17.1 79° 17 13.9 333.9 419.8 0
6 Mike  Golding Gamesa 43°05.12'N 11°36.72'W 12.5 61° 12.5 10.7 257.2 464.7 44.9
7 Dominique Wavre Mirabaud 40°55.31'N 19°24.89'W 6.8 4° 3.8 6.4 153.6 831.6 411.8
8 Arnaud  Boissières Akena Verandas 39°23.79'N 20°58.51'W 7.6 107° 4.9 5.8 139.3 940.3 520.5
9 Bertrand De Broc Votre nom 31°50.56'N 30°01.64'W 10.8 347° 5.4 11.6 278.1 1566.6 1146.8
10 Tanguy  Delamotte Initiatives Coeur 13°28.31'N 33°00.16'W 6.6 341° 4.4 4.4 104.9 2536.5 2116.6
11 Alessandro Di Benedetto Team Plastique 00°54.11'N 23°51.85'W 8 9° 8 7.7 184.4 3027.8 2608
RET Javier Sanso Acciona Lost keel and capsized. (3 Feb)            
RET Bernard Stamm Cheminees Ran out of fuel after hydrogenerator problems (9 Jan)        
RET Vincent  Riou PRB Damage to hull and lower shroud after collision with drifting buoy (24 Nov)    
RET Zbigniew Gutowski  Energa Autopilot failure (21 Nov)              
RET Jérémie Beyou Maitre CoQ Broken hydraulic ram (19 Nov)              
RET Sam Davies Saveol Dismasted (15 Nov)              
RET Louis Burton Bureau Vallee Rammed by a fishing boat, rigging damage (14 Nov)        
RET Kito de Pavant Groupe Bel Rammed by a fishing boat, hull damage (12 Nov)          
RET Marc Guillemot Safran Titanium keel broke (10 Nov)              

Jean le Cam and SynerCiel's 'buffalo girls' move around the west side of the high has paid dividends over the last 24 hours. Now heading directly towards the Les Sables d'Olonne finish line, the French round the world veteran reclaimed fifth place off Mike Golding and Gamesa yesterday afternoon. Into the strong northwesterlies le Cam has since then been constantly sailing five knots faster than Gamesa and at the latest sched has extended his lead to 44 miles, with just over a day's sailing left to go.

On the water SynerCiel is still some distance away, now around 180 miles to the north of Gamesa. SynerCiel is still making hay in 25 knot northwesterlies while Gamesa is substantially more headed as she attempts to get past Cape Finisterre (currently some 100 miles west of the Spanish coast).

The strong northwesterlies are forecast to hold until the two boats arrive tomorrow, however their skippers will be pleased that the forecast (the European model at least) is no longer showing 50 knots tonight, although it will still be breezy and this will make for lumpy conditions as they cross the continental shelf some 95 miles from the finish.

This morning Golding reported: "I am accelerating now. I have been waiting to get going and finally it is happening, I am pointing past Finisterre and at Les Sables d’Olonne and that certainly feels better but it looks like it will be a windy finish alright! It should be fine in the N’ly closer to the coast."
 

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