Less than 800 miles from Les Sables-d'Olonne the posse of five international skippers is still fighting towards the finish. "They have to cross a ridge of high pressure today, switch from a South, South-West wind to a West, North-West wind", underlined Christian Dumard, the Vendée Globe meteorologist.
There has been almost non-stop small cumulobeastie activity, sometimes every few minutes, not too much wind in them and not a lot behind. The radar screen is dotted with little squalls. Yesterday, I crossed paths with a yacht called Dreamcatcher on its way from the Canaries to Grenada. Lucky them! We had a brief chat on VHF. This is the closest I have been to other human beings for a long time!
The Sat C distress alarm has been going off regularly to warn of yet another pirate attack on a merchant vessel, mostly in or off the Gulf of Guinea. It's amazing how much we heard about piracy when it was taking place off Somalia and how little we hear about it now, when hundreds of crew have been kidnapped, some killed, and some of these attacks are taking place nearly 200 miles away from land by heavily armed pirates. Nothing romantic about the the word "pirate".
"It's intense, the wind came in yesterday as expected when we passed the Azores. It's getting harder, the manoeuvres are harder. My little body seems a bit tired. The match that we are playing with five of us is getting more complicated with the weather conditions. I realise that in a few days time the boat will be at the dock. I hope in any case! I should arrive for Saint Arnaud's Day! We said to Alan (Roura) and Stéphane (Le Diraison) that we should arrive during the day and if possible at high tide with good weather. We enter the channel at the same time, but I want to arrive just in front of them anyway!"
Arnaud Boissières / La Mie Câline-Artisans Artipole
After the finishes on Saturday, Jérémie Beyou in 13th and Romain Attanasio in 14th arriving in Les Sables d’Olonne’s channel at either end of the day, six more skippers are due to finish this week, among them France’s Arnaud Boissières and Stéphane Le Diraison, Switzerland’s Alan Roura, Japan’s Kojiro Shiraishi, Great Britain’s Pip Hare and Spain’s Didac Costa.
Manu Cousin suffered damage to his keel ram system which is leaving it swinging on its axis. He spoke on the morning radio call....
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