Article on VG 07:10.gmt.
It is still too close to call. And it likely will be for much of this final morning racing for the leaders. Louis Burton in third this morning noted the discrepancy between what the weather models are forecasting and what he has on the Bay of Biscay, the yellow bow of Bureau Vallée 2 pointed a Les Sables d’Olonne some 315 nautical miles in front of him.
On his southern option, working closer to the Galician coast leader
Charlie Dalin has made five gybes in the last 130 miles, since passing to the north of
Cape Finisterre and. Although Dalin grew up in Le Havre and lives in Brittany he is absolutely in his offshore racing backyard, on the arena where so many La Solitaire du Figaro stages have taken him to and from the north coast of Spain.
The skipper of Apivia leads by only 49 miles from
Boris Herrmann whose course is about 30 miles to the north of Dalin’s.
There is nothing in it at all. Herrmann has six hours compensation to deduct from his elapsed time, so in essence Dalin needs 120 miles of cushion or a bit less and had 230 miles left to race at 0530hrs UTC.
Yannick Bestaven has 10hrs and 15 minutes of redress and so to beat him Herrmann needs four hours and 15 minutes between him and the skipper of Maître Coq. Right now there is computed to be 125 miles but Bestaven – at 440 miles to the finish - is bringing the wind in, racing at 21kts. Latest computer predictions have Dalin on the line early evening, French time, between about 1700hrs and 1900hrs perhaps and some of the corrected margins will be in minutes, for sure.
Who will get the advantage on this nerve shredding final sprint? It's difficult to say because everything will depend on the direction and strength of the breeze in the final hours (the last sixty miles). On paper, the southwesterly wind blowing on the
Bay of Biscay will take on a more westerly direction for the last two hundred miles blowing above fifteen knots. But closing to land it might ease to a dozen knots, which suggests that the solo sailors will probably have to do one, two or more gybes under a spinnaker, that is.....if they took one and if it is still operational. The end of the course might be a relatively slow cliffhanger.....