For all that he lost the most important part of his starboard foil yesterday Seb Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) is managing to keep up the high average speeds. Right now he has more wind than leader Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) who is nudging into the influence of a big area of high pressure which is pulsing in from the NW, squeezed by an east moving depression which is affecting his ‘hunters’.

Indeed the unlucky Simon has actually pulled back a few small miles against Dalin which will at least make him feel a little better and certainly underlines his pledge to keep pushing hard. The big gainers, not unexpectedly are Yoann Richomme (PAPREC ARKÉA) and Thomas Ruyant (VULNERABLE) who have had the best positioning on this depression and have both pulled back around 100-110 miles on Dalin since yesterday.

To their north and west conditions have been tough for Nico Lunven (HOLCIM PRB) and for Jérémie Beyou (CHARAL) who, having struggled with too little wind a few days ago now have too much as they struggle in confused seas and gusts to 40kts in this low pressure system. Watching not just the advance of Dalin and Simon, who he considers the weather is playing out better for, Beyou is in a mood which matches the constant grey skies of the big south and seemingly regrets his decision to go north for the last depression,

“The first month always goes by quickly, we do two oceans in the first month.” the Charal skipper said this morning, “The conditions have not been easy for about ten days, going around this big depression has completely changed my race, it has completely put me out of the battle in front that I was in. Those in front have slipped just in front of the depression, the group of hunters had to go around by the North, and the group behind them were able to continue straight so they had like a highway, so we were really trapped by that and well it dictates my whole race on a weather phenomenon, it’s really infuriating.”

He adds, “ And then I think we are really on the wrong trajectory, last night the small low pressure has hit right on me, so I had a night with 45 knots on average there! The sea is rough there, so not easy conditions, boat-breaking for about ten days, not easy. The challenge for the next few days is not to break the boat in these conditions, the sea is very choppy, we have a southwest swell and a little chop from the north, needless to say that as soon as we try to send the boat at more than 20 knots, it’s really very hard for it, and it’s tiring for the guy too! Really having had to go around this northerly dep, and behind in addition to taking storms five or six days ago, I think I’m the only one to have taken that with Nico.

“Start of the race I was not in the right pattern, it’s not opening up for me. I have the impression that for the first two it’s opening up in front, for the group behind us too. For us, we are in a difficult pattern, the objective for the next few days would be for things to change a little, for the patterns to be a little more natural, the trajectories too, and for conditions to be a little more equitable between the leading boats. Physically, I am fine, I can sleep, eat. Morally, I know that the race is long even if it has been hard for a few days, I am trying to keep the boat in good condition, even if I have a few little things that are not going well, you can’t have fun standing up on the boat and breaking key parts that would handicap me enormously until the end.”

But Beyou finally asserts, “ I believe in the fact that at some point things will turn around, that there will be an opportunity to come back, I will have to seize it! “

Seizing every opportunity as well as some astute, typically punchy strategy has been Pip Hare who has made good work of transitioning herself around the centre of the same big low pressure system. The skipper of Medallia has pulled right back into Romain Attanasio (Fortinet-Best Western) to be just 25 miles behind him and still going quicker this morning.

And as Dalin contemplates passing the second Cape, Cape Leeuwin today’s Belgium’s amateur Denis Van Weynbergh (D’Ietern) is celebrating the Cape of Good Hope and – in due course at Cape Agulhas – his first ever passage into the Indian Ocean – today should also see JingKun Xu cross Good Hope today which should be a massive milestone for the indefatigable, humble Chinese skipper.

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