It seems to be Louis Burton on Bureau Vallée who has finally escaped from the Doldrums first. He has been making a consistent 17kts early this morning in the 16-18kts NE’ly trade winds which seem to be well established. With the exception of Charlie Dalin who is 115 nautical miles to his SE, the pack is well dispersed and mostly still struggling with an ICTZ which is proving much more active and sticky than was expected.
The Doldrums did not give up the Vendée Globe leaders as easily as was initially predicted but first placed Charlie Dalin (Apivia) appears to have skirted round the worst of a dynamic cloud system and emerged this afternoon with his margin intact.
Pete Goss was the guest of Andi Robertson on the Vendée English live today.
Miranda Merron (Campagne de France) has passed Cape Horn this morning in 23rd place at 0923hrs UTC, her elapsed time since the start is 69 days 20hrs 03 mins
Louis Burton, the 35 year old Saint Malo skipper of Bureau Vallée 2 was the first Vendée Globe skipper to break back into the northern hemisphere last night, crossing the Equator at 1911hrs UTC last night. Just less than one hour later and some 50 miles to the east of him Charlie Dalin crossed second and 37 minutes later, close to the wake of Burton, Germany’s Boris Herrmann also returned to the ‘home’ hemisphere. So just one hour and 37 minutes separated the top three boats and on the early morning rankings that equates to just 22 miles between first and third in terms of distance to finish. When Yannick Bestaven brought Maître Coq IV across at 0236hrs, 3hrs 30mins after fourth placed LinkedOut the top five had crossed within seven hours.
And so increasingly it is looking like this Vendée Globe will be decided after the Canary Islands and who best negotiates a high pressure ridge from there and hooks into the low pressure system which accelerates the leaders towards Les Sables d’Olonne and the finish line.
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