Challenge Cape Finisterre

Gildas Morvan leads after a difficult night on leg 2 of La Solitaire du Figaro

As anticipated on what was forecast to be a light leg, so the Solitaire du Figaro has spent the last hours parked up off Cape Finisterre with the top 30 boats now within 5 miles of each other but with Gildas Morvan on Cercle Verte and Jean-Pierre Nicol on Bernard Controls having nosed ahead of the rest of the 41 boat fleet.

Image above courtesy of Expedition with GRIB files from Predictwind

Positions at 0848 UTC

From the outset yesterday the skippers had clearly decided whether they wanted to be inshore or offshore with Jeremie Beyou on Maitre CoQ and Anthony Marchand on Bretagne Credit Mutuel Performance taking the most offshore trac,k but with Adrien Hardy on AGIR Recouvrement, Gildas Morvan on Cercle Verte and Jean-Pierre Nicol on Bernard Controls chosing a route north closest to the shore, but with the majority of the fleet taking the former course.

By early evening the inshore was paying with Morvan and Hardy edging ahead, still heading north closest to the coast. Beyou and young hopeful Morgan Lagraviere on Vendee were still leading the charge in the west, but had dropped to 16th and 17th, 1.5 miles off the lead at the final sched last night.

Over the course of the evening Hardy moved west setting himself up ahead of the bulk of the fleet as Morvan stuck to his guns in the east. By around 2000 UTC the boats were passing Vigo and had bunched together laterally with Morvan still ahead in the east.

By 2200 the boats had struck a brick wall with the wind shutting down causing almost all the fleet to put in a costly hitch to the west. This placed Thierry Chabagny and Gedimat in the lead with Jeremie Beyou second with Morvan down to around sixth and with rookie Simon Troel on Les Recycleurs Bretons doing well in fourth, this group holding the mid-right. By the point the fleet had once again split into westerly and easterly groups, with Fabien Delahaye on Skipper MACIF 2012 leading the offshore group.

In the early hours of the morning the inshore was still paying with Chabagny remaining a nose in front of Beyou with Aliex Loison on Groupe Fiva close behind in third.

By around 0500 UTC this morning the boats had converged yet again with Beyou technically leading but with Simon Troel holding the most inshore berth and still going well in second.

At breakfast time the wind dropped off again and there was a compression in the fleet causing the top 30 boats to regroup to within 5 miles of the leader.

Gildas Morvan pulled out his present lead by going inshore at Cape Finisterre passing ahead of Troels. Once again the bulk of the fleet remains offshore with the familiar figure of Michel Desjoyeaux on TBS pulling ahead.

The Brits have been making a bit of a meal of the leg so far. Saying this Nick Cherry on Magma Structures was allegedly holding 10th at the latest sched but has since lost it, while David Kenfick after his hero to zero first few hours of the race is back up to 20th - good work from the young Irish sailor. The rest of the Brits were wallowing in the deep 30s, but their offshore track might reap dividends in the longer term.