12 miles behind the leader: Roland Jourdain "Sill et Véolia"
With the last position reports this Wednesday morning (4 o'clock), the French Vincent Riou continued to lead the Vendée Globe fleet with his "PRB". Close on his heels are his compatriot Roland Jourdain ("Sill et Véolia") and the Briton Alex Thomson ("Hugo Boss").
The wind is currently driving the fleet at 20 to 25 knots from the northeast. Eleven of the 20 ships covered more than 300 nautical miles in the last 24 hours.
At the start of the race, positions behind the leading Vincent Riou kept changing over the past two days. No wonder, since the eighth is sailing this morning (Jean-Pierre Dick ("Virbac-Paprec") just 55 nautical miles behind Riou. A second group is currently opening up with the ninth placed Patrice Carpentier, who is almost 30th with his "VM Matériaux" Nautical miles behind Dick sails. He and the next six sailors in the 24,000-mile race are again only 40 miles apart. However, there is a large gap between Hervé Laurent in 15th ("UUDS") and Anne Liardet in 16th ("Roxy") with 90 nautical miles.
Third place: Ales Thomson "Hugo Boss"
Norbert Sedlacek (see also portrait YACHT 23/04), the only German-speaking skipper among the 20 participants, is now back in 20th and last place after having swapped positions with French woman Karen Leibovici ("Benefic"). However, this does not seem to bother the Viennese much. For him, the following applies anyway: Arriving gives full points. And finally, said Sedlacek in an interview with the YACHT, everyone who finishes what is probably the toughest race in the world is a winner. The 42-year-old is not completely wrong with this view of things. After all, in the last four Vendée Globe races, only 35 of the 68 participants who started were able to finish the regatta.
With the British Nigel Burgess (Vendée 1992/1993) and the Canadian Gerry Roufs (Vendée 96/97) even two sailors lost their lives.
The positions on Wednesday morning at 4 a.m. (GMT):
1. "PRB", Vincent Riou 2. "Sill et Véolia", Roland Jourdain, to the leader: 12.6 nautical miles 3. "Hugo Boss", Alex Thomson, zF: 29.84. "Bonduelle", Jean Le Cam, zF: 32.0 5. "VMI", Sébastien Josse, zF: 35.26. "Ecover", Mike Golding, zF: 35.87. "Temenos", Dominique Wavre, zF: 45.88. "Virbac-Paprec", Jean-Pierre Dick, zF: 55.69. "VM Matériaux", Patrice Carpentier, zF: 81.910. "Arcelor Dunkerque", Joé Seeten, zF: 83.211. "Hellomoto", Conrad Humphreys, zF: 85.512. "Pro-Form", Marc Thiercelin, zF: 98.313. "Skandia", Nick Moloney, 99.914. "Ocean Planet", Bruce Schwab, zF: 117.115. "UUDS", Hervé Laurent, zF: 124.5 16. "Roxy", Anne Liardet, zF: 210.217. "AkenVérandas", Raphaël Dinelli, zF: 212.118. "Max Havelaar / Best Western", Benoît Parnaudeau, zF: 227.1 19. "Benefic", Karen Leibovici, zF: 267.820. "Brother", Norbert Sedlacek, zF: 273.0