The leading duo are largely holding their advantage over the chasing pack though Simon is showing slightly slower than Dalin. As they start to pass under Australia working towards the gateway to the Pacific at the longitude of Tasmania and then the south of New Zealand, even with just over a month gone, the leaders – at least – are starting to mentally countdown to the midpoint of the race, especially as they are running routings towards the longitude of Tasmania at least. And so for them the race starts to feel much more achievable. It may seem a bit like contemplating Christmas in November – Dalin still has a little over 1100 miles to go to the midpoint – but all these mental milestones are a motivation to the skippers. 

Fastest of the top group is Nico Lunven (HOLCIM PRB) who, along with Jérémie Beyou (Charal) who is only ten miles ahead of him in fifth, is trying to make good the deficit they incurred when they went north to avoid the worst of the low pressure and were caught by an encroaching high pressure zone which slowed them. 

Lunven said this morning, “The last few weeks have passed very quickly and in actual fact in one more week, something like that we will be in the middle of the race course so it is a good point. I am sixth but in the last few days I lost quite a lot going north to avoid the very strong winds but I have no regrets because to me it was not safe to sail in that very strong low pressure system. Right now I am sailing downwind in 25 knots. something like that, but the sea state is very bad and it is quite hard to make the boat fast with the waves, the boat is nearly under the water and so I hope it will be better in the next hours and then for the next few days we are going to keep sailing downwind in a range of 20-25kts up almost to the south of New Zealand, maybe with a little uncertainty for the last part. It should be nicer sailing but the sea state is not good now.” 

After days in thick fog the sun is back out for Sam Davies and her group, "A bit of a complicated night - I had a very unstable wind with a chaotic sea and I made several sail changes to try to find the right sailplan and the right course - but after each change, the wind changed again and it was never good!
Finally I came back to the same sails as at the beginning and that was the best! A bit frustrating, but at least I wasn't cold last night with the maneuvers!!

And the good surprise shortly after sunrise - the fog has gone, I can see the horizon at more than 50 m for the first time in 4 days!! And even better, the sun has come out! It's been a long time since I saw the blue sky! It's maybe the first signs of the end of the Indian Ocean! It's great because with all the portholes in my cockpit it warms up quickly in the sun and it's 15 degrees in the cockpit. It feels good!
There are 25 to 30 knots of wind and the sea is not very tidy I feel like I'm in a washing machine and I'm trying to adjust the boat so that it doesn't slam too much!!"

Great expectations? 
There are quite a number of skippers in the fleet who day in day out right now are wrestling with a position which is below what they expected on this race. With the Vendée Globe dominating their lives, eating, sleeping, breathing the race for the last four years, it is important not to let this dominate the thoughts. One such skipper is Damien Seguin who sailed an excellent race in 2020-21 on his daggerboard boat finishing seventh. Indeed he was actually the first daggerboard boat to finish but Jean Le Cam overtook him to fourth after time compensation for his rescue of Kevin Escoffier. Seguin is 17th on Groupe APICIL

“When I look at my position in the fleet it stays a bit the same, I try not to look too much because it doesn't really inspire me, clearly this has not been the start of the race that I imagined, I haven’t really done what I wanted to. Recently I took this slightly more northerly option, a choice to avoid the bulk of the depression in front of me, but in the end I still had quite muscular conditions, it has just calmed down but two hours ago I still had 30 knots and 5-metre waves so it was complicated. I know that the Indian Ocean is complicated, this is the third time I've been here now and the third time that I've told myself that I'll not be buying real estate here that's for sure! It's a bad time for everyone, I think there's relatively little breakage given how demanding it is on the equipment, maybe there will be a bit later, but I find it.