Vendée Globe: if anyone can Le Cam can

Is it east is best or west is best? Right now on the Vendée Globe the east has retained a more consistent breeze as the ‘leaders’ work more to the west looking to get out of the high pressure zone of very light winds soonest. The fleet is super tightly grouped with 30 boats all within 100 miles.....

Yes he cam?
And so, as many suspected given the forecast for downwind sailing and multiple transition zones, it is the wily old fox of the oceans Jean Le Cam on his new David Raison designed non-foiling IMOCA who is top of the rankings this morning. He has often been a fan of the more direct route in the past and this morning has a small lead over Giancarlo Pedote, the Italian skipper of Prysmian who is nearly 200 miles to the east of the 65 year old Le Cam who is on his sixth Vendée Globe, racing the newest boat in the fleet. 

I was really surprised by the comfort of the boat at high speed on the downwind phases. Sometimes I woke up and opened my eyes and said to myself "the boat has stopped, I'm not going fast enough" and I was at 20-25 knots, it's pretty cool!
CharlieDalin
MACIF Santé Prévoyance

So far so good....
Kiwi Conrad Colman on MS Amlin had a slow phase working through the lee of Madeira, the only skipper to go east of the island group, but is now well placed in the wake of Le Cam, reporting this morning, “So far so good. I am cruising along doing 12kts of boatspeed in eight knots of wind at the moment and I am heading more or less south which is exactly where I need to be going. And I have not stopped yet. Maybe the light winds in the forecast are still to come, but at the moment I have been making excellent progress out here on the eastern option in the good company of Jean Le Cam. So I am cruising along. The moon is so bright it has wiped out all the stars. It is quite a special an spectacular evening I have been able to literally read a book in the cockpit literally by the light of the moon. It is so spectacularly beautiful, it is calm, the boat just cruises along, leaving a little bubbling wake out to the horizon and it is really pleasant, nice to be cruising along in the Vendée Globe without a great deal of stress at the moment. However I am still working on the boat, I am re-stitching the lazy bag that supports the mainsail (ed note, folds of the mainsail when part or all is lowered) and it is good timing as it blew up on the second night when I put two reefs in it. And now at least for the next week or ten days I am not going to be taking a reef in. So I have plenty of time to fix it, I have been doing a lot of hand stitching, even if it is tedious work and I have been working on my hydrogenerators so I can guarantee my energy levels. But in the meantime my solar panels are doing a great, great job and everything is tickety boo.”  

Charlie Dalin, previous leader on MACIF Santé Prevoyance, has spent periods nearly rooted to the spot, as have the skippers around him. Dalin notes this morning, I'm in pretty good shape today, I managed to sleep well the night before last , and we had a whole day of light wind, so I'm in good shape. And the boat is in great shape, touch wood! I've just fixed a furling line which had torn off because of too much tension, but that's exactly what is supposed to happen. What happened is still a mystery, but it's all glued back together! I put a patch on the Masthead Zero (biggest downwind sail, the clew or back bottom corner of which extends well back and so rubs on the outrigger deck spreader, ed note) the first night, a little worn in the outrigger, not pierced, but that's about it! For now, I'm pretty well sorted. 

Overall it is a slightly easier mission than what we saw four years ago. Four years ago we had two fairly violent fronts plus a tropical storm, now we clearly won't have anything like that on the menu! I am happy to do this round the world passage again on this new boat which is really adapted to the course, I was really surprised by the comfort of the boat at high speed on the downwind phases. Sometimes I woke up and opened my eyes and said to myself "the boat has stopped, I'm not going fast enough" and I was at 20-25 knots, it's pretty cool! It's tight in the fleet, I have Thomas Ruyant racing not far away, I'm side by side with Jérémie and Louis, Yoann is right next to us too, we're trying to get away.

Right now I'm in the light and for the West it is too late to change my mind! We're going to try to cross as this sticky stuff quickly as possible in the next few hours, before leaving this zone, and find speed again to go cross the Doldrums

The fleet is very grouped, they are coming back from behind like four years ago, I hope it won't be like that all the time! It stretched out a first time, it regrouped in Madeira, there it had managed to move a little and I had caught up, and there it is recompressing but it is dense, it is good, at least there is a fight, and that is only going to carry on so much the better! The challenge is really to get out of this zone quickly, there I only have between 0.5 knots and 1.5 knots of wind, it is really soft, so I hope it will start soon, on our side compared to the others, not so on the South East side! Normally we should have already finished this phase a little, but it is clearly not the case!”

The moon is so bright it has wiped out all the stars. It is quite a special an spectacular evening I have been able to literally read a book in the cockpit literally by the light of the moon. It is so spectacularly beautiful, it is calm, the boat just cruises along, leaving a little bubbling wake out to the horizon and it is really pleasant, nice to be cruising along in the Vendée Globe without a great deal of stress at the moment.
ConradColman
MS Amlin

Invest in west is best?
The weather situation remains very dynamic and the various weather models do not necessarily agree. Conventional wisdom is always ‘west is best’. Le Cam has angled back sharply this morning maybe the possibility of a lane of breeze down the African coast has closed? Certainly there is a cell of high pressure right in front of him which is evolving. 
Meantime Szabolcs Weöres (NEW EUROPE) is making decent progress south towards the Canaries, finally emerging from the cut off low pressure which generated the strong winds for him. Now he has a little less wind and is making 10kts with just over 100 nautical miles to the Spanish islands group where he will try and sort out his damaged mainsail.