While most of us may think the actual winner of the current Vendee Globe will emerge in the next day or two from among the ranks of Charlie Dalin, Boris Herrmann, Louis Burton, Thomas Ruyant, and Yannick Bestaven as they fine-tune their downwind progress in the Bay of Biscay towards the finish at Les Sables-d'Olonne, it's arguable that the real winner is already comfortably ensconced at home in Brittany, and has been since last Saturday.
For last Saturday afternoon saw the leaders of the mighty race miss the record of 74 days 3 hours and 35 minutes set by Armel Le Cleac'h with Banque Populaire VIII on January 19th 2017. Yet at the time, the '20-'21 leaders were still struggling to find the optimum route through the obtuse bit of ocean between the Azores and Iberia. And while it's probably going to be the most exciting finish ever seen in the race, it won't be a new record.
Yet with eight completely new boats in the fleet of 33 IMOCA 60s with their foil development moved several generations forward since 2017, a new record in a four-yearly event of this nature should be a natural part of the outcome. Certainly, before it all started, Alex Thomson of Hugo Boss was suggesting that they all should be aiming to get around under 70 days and that even 60 days was theoretically possible.
But the global pandemic meant that preparation and testing of the newest boats - and any new gizmos fitted to older craft - was limited, such that among the race-exiting breakages were those sustained by Hugo Boss.
Armel Le Cleach celebrates his third overall victory in the Figaro Solo, September 2020
That said, in the early stages of the race, the tracker charts showed the relative position of Banque Populaire VIII back in 2016. They clearly indicated that while the current fleet was having a messy time getting down the Atlantic, four years earlier Armel Le Cleac'h had been steadily going like a train – and a fast train at that. Thus his daily positions started being embarrassingly far ahead of the current fleet, and by the time he was looking to show nearly a week ahead down in the Southern Ocean, the postings of his relative position seemed to disappear from any tracker charts we could access.
Back in December 2016 and January 2017, Le Cleac'h had his own difficulties with contrary wind patterns in getting northward along the east coast of South America. But even though this stage in '20-'21 saw the current leaders making lots of knots in a drag race, they still weren't able to cut Banque Populaire VIII's performance down to size, and now it's well beyond them.
So this is a good time for Breton sailing. And it's arguable that Armel Le Cleach – now 43 – is the most accomplished single-handed offshore racer currently operating anywhere in the world at the sharpest end of the sport. For although he opted out of the Vendee Globe 2020-2021, he threw himself instead into the full maelstrom of the Figaro Solo 2020. And he was the overall winner of that too – for the third time.
Thus if he's not feeling very relaxed at the moment, then he certainly should be. And meanwhile the Battle of Biscay – or should we call it the Grind of Gascony – is being played out to its final stages – Tracker Chart here
