Rhythm of the Race Fast sailing for most as PRB nears Cape Horn.

Standings table 

Top 3

1.  PRB 44 South 70 West
2.  Kingfisher 55 South 85 West + 573 miles 
3.  Sill  53 South 92 West +835 miles

PRB nears Cape Horn

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Fleet round up section

Michel Desjoyeaux will round the last of the great capes on the Vendee Globe course, Cape Horn, with a steady and substansial lead.  He gained 12 miles on 2nd place Kingfisher and 53 on 3rd place Sill.  4th place Active Wear is only 13 miles back from Sill.

All of these boats are showing two digit speeds except for Kingfisher at 7 knots meaning Desjoyeaux could round Cape Horn and increase his lead, a pretty good day on the water.

Skipper Communications

Josh Hall EBP/Gartmore "Life onboard is ok....I am ready to leave the south though and have more pleasant sailing conditions. Sails and systems seem to be holding up very well still and I hope to be at 100% for the last 7000 miles home."

Ellen Macarthur Kingfisher "I have prepared everything to start the repair on the gennaker, although I shan’t attempt it for quite a while, well after Cape Horn. I only have enough material for one go, so I need to make sure it’s dry so that the repair sticks properly - down here that is almost impossible."

Mike Golding Group 4 "I look 72 hours ahead but can’t see a great deal of breeze, and what there is is flighty. It’s hard work always adjusting the sails or autopilot setting. The Pacific is certainly living up to its name!"

Dominique Wavre UBP "It will the 5th time I will pass it [Cape Horn] and it will be the end of a nerve wrecking period. This South has been more tiring on a psychological point of view than physically."

Michel Desjoyeaux PRB ". You always think you’re going to pass some barrier leaving one ocean and entering another, always bizarre sensation, physically and rationally, and it can be often an emotionally poignant time. Passing into the Pacific from the Indian, there were lots more animals, birds especially in the Indian and hardly anything in the Pacific."


Thomas Coville Sobedo "Nothing like the conditions we had to face on Sport Elec. To come here and have this odd sort of weather is not that much fun at all. Almost all of the fleet has the same conditions. The best ones are out in front. You make your own luck. Sodebo is made for sailing downwind in strong winds and we’ve had nothing but medium conditions which are much more suited to the type of boats which are in the lead right now."

Current Weather Michel Desjoyeaux and PRB have stronger wind from the NW as compared to the next 3 who have lighter SSW winds.

Weather Forecast PRB maybe on the wind soon, while the next group approaching the Horn should do so down wind.

What does it all mean

Josh Hall feels his boat is 100%, while all of the lead group have troubles. They may have pushed too hard but their risks have paid off in position, a clear example of the tenuous risk/rewward scenarios that dominate this race.