The race to the Vendée Globe finish line today became an all-out, neck-and-neck sprint as the leading pair's speedos rocketed into the 20s.
After several days of slow progress north in light winds, Armel Le Cléac'h and Alex Thomson (with Irish connections) were today blasting towards the home straight of the solo round the world race in winds of up to 30 knots.
The skippers, split by just 95 nautical miles, were eating up the 1,300nm standing between them and the finish line in Les Sables d'Olonne, France, as they try to squeeze every last bit of speed from their foiling IMOCA 60 raceboats.
At the 1400 UTC position update British skipper Thomson, who led the race through most of its early stages, had a narrow speed advantage as he hurtled north on Hugo Boss at 24 knots. French skipper Le Cléac'h, who has topped the rankings since December 2, was more than two knots slower as he closed in on the Azores. With the ETA in Les Sables currently Thursday, the Vendée Globe is shaping up to go right down to the wire.
“We have 17 to 20 knots of breeze at the moment and not very nice seas to be honest with the waves coming in from the east,” Thomson told Vendée Globe HQ in Les Sables today. “It's difficult to go fast but I'm not complaining because I am making good speed. It's going to get windy in the next 24 hours, up to 30 knots. We'll be going fast, and we'll have to see how things pan out.”
Thomson is competing in the Vendée Globe for the fourth time and is aiming to become the first Briton ever to win the race in its 27-year history. If he can continue to eat into Le Cléac'h's lead there is a chance he could realise his goal. Le Cléac'h, meanwhile, is hell-bent on ensuring he scores his first ever Vendée Globe win after posting runner's-up finishes in the past two editions.
The anticyclone currently blocking the duo's path to Les Sables is moving towards the English Channel and in another 36 hours the pair will be able to point their bows towards the finish line for an upwind drag race to glory.
Some 6,000nm behind the leaders the quartet of Fabrice Amedeo, Arnaud Boissières, Alan Roura and Rich Wilson from 11th to 14th were fighting a battle against Mother Nature as they approached Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America. North-westerly breeze of up to 40 knots was making for a testing passage past the legendary milestone, not only battering the boats but whipping up seas of up to six metres high.
Amedeo, a sports journalist-turned-solo sailor, said his primary focus was to preserve man and boat in order to keep his dream alive of finishing the Vendée Globe. “It's an amazing moment for me because it's my first rounding of Cape Horn, and it comes after one month in the south,” he said. “But because of the wind I feel a little bit stressed and it hasn't quite sunk in that I will round Cape Horn in a few hours. I'm very concentrated now but I will feel better in two days – then it will feel like a victory. I'll have a lot of wind today and tomorrow so my psychological Cape Horn will be tomorrow evening.”
The enormity of the task at hand is not lost on Swiss sailor Alan Roura, who at 23 is the race's youngest skipper. “It's my first Cape Horn and it's no holiday that's for sure,” he said. “It'll be a big, big relief to round it as it's a key passage and marks our return home. I hope we'll have milder conditions in the Atlantic.”