Vincent Riou himself is no stranger to enforced Azores stops, having been forced to retire into Horta out of November’s Transat Jacques Vabre, but he made the best of the strategic options passing to the west of Sao Miguel today to gain more breeze and a better angle on the downwind leg towards Fastnet Rock. Since he passed Santa Maria, Riou has gained more than 30 miles on his nearest rivals and this afternoon leads the race, ahead of Armel Le Cléac’h by 11.5 miles. That choice is all the more clever given that commonly used software routing indicated the easterly option to be preferred.
But Riou is of course something of a meteo ace, having routed for Michel Desjoyeaux during his Route du Rhum victory, and shown great strategic choices when he won the 2004-5 Vendée Globe.
The Gang of Four, as they are now, Riou, Le Cléac’h, third placed Francois Gabart and Bernard Stamm – who is fastest of the fleet this afternoon on fourth placed Cheminées Poujoulat, is expected to hold the strong S’ly and SSW’ly winds all the way to the Fastnet, veering more to the SW, and so the work rate will remain high and intense, with boats pressing 20kts a lot of the time. They asked for a warm up, and for sure they are getting conditions which are a good dress rehearsal for the south.
Quotes:
Armel Le Cléac'h (Banque Populaire): "The wind gotup and it is going well downwind. This morning I had a small problem with my mainsail. So I had to haul down the mainsail and repair it before re-setting it again. With my technical problem, François (Gabart) was just off me thismorning. We will still be downwind tomorrow and then it will drop and veer. We will not have great options to Fastnet. It is a thousand miles to the light there, so there's plenty on "
Vincent Riou (PRB): "Last night when I saw them going the east of Sao Miguel, I was surprised. It’s not what I considered. Trying to set the VMG spinnaker or gennaker in the dark between the islands was not very appealing at all. Not solo in any case! I went fast enough (to the west of the island) and at the tip, I set the gennaker and since then we’ve been flying! I came this way for the angle and I have it. Nice going, I'm pretty happy with the way the boat goes in these conditions. This is why we do this, these are great times of great pleasure. Clearly going west was not the quickest on the routing but we’ll see in a few hours. So we’ll see what happens. It will be down to who can maintain the best speeds over time.”
1 PRB Vincent Riou
2 MACIF François Gabart 15.1
3 Cheminées Poujoulat Bernard Stamm 15.2
4 Banque Populaire Armel Le Cléac'h 17.3
5 ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered Javier Sansó 130.1
Virbac-Paprec Jean-Pierre Dick Abandon
Groupe Bel Kito de Pavant Abandon
From : Europa Warm'Up
Credit : PRB
But Riou is of course something of a meteo ace, having routed for Michel Desjoyeaux during his Route du Rhum victory, and shown great strategic choices when he won the 2004-5 Vendée Globe.
The Gang of Four, as they are now, Riou, Le Cléac’h, third placed Francois Gabart and Bernard Stamm – who is fastest of the fleet this afternoon on fourth placed Cheminées Poujoulat, is expected to hold the strong S’ly and SSW’ly winds all the way to the Fastnet, veering more to the SW, and so the work rate will remain high and intense, with boats pressing 20kts a lot of the time. They asked for a warm up, and for sure they are getting conditions which are a good dress rehearsal for the south.
Quotes:
Armel Le Cléac'h (Banque Populaire): "The wind gotup and it is going well downwind. This morning I had a small problem with my mainsail. So I had to haul down the mainsail and repair it before re-setting it again. With my technical problem, François (Gabart) was just off me thismorning. We will still be downwind tomorrow and then it will drop and veer. We will not have great options to Fastnet. It is a thousand miles to the light there, so there's plenty on "
Vincent Riou (PRB): "Last night when I saw them going the east of Sao Miguel, I was surprised. It’s not what I considered. Trying to set the VMG spinnaker or gennaker in the dark between the islands was not very appealing at all. Not solo in any case! I went fast enough (to the west of the island) and at the tip, I set the gennaker and since then we’ve been flying! I came this way for the angle and I have it. Nice going, I'm pretty happy with the way the boat goes in these conditions. This is why we do this, these are great times of great pleasure. Clearly going west was not the quickest on the routing but we’ll see in a few hours. So we’ll see what happens. It will be down to who can maintain the best speeds over time.”
1 PRB Vincent Riou
2 MACIF François Gabart 15.1
3 Cheminées Poujoulat Bernard Stamm 15.2
4 Banque Populaire Armel Le Cléac'h 17.3
5 ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered Javier Sansó 130.1
Virbac-Paprec Jean-Pierre Dick Abandon
Groupe Bel Kito de Pavant Abandon
From : Europa Warm'Up
