Christmas seems to be a nasty surprise for the front runners of the race, while the pursuers are in for a nice present: While the two leaders Jean Le Cam ("Bonduelle") and Vincent Riou ("PRB") struggle slowly in weak headwinds, Mike have Golding ("Ecover") and Sebastien Josse ("VMI") again made up 30 miles on the top duo.
Golding, who has been sailing in third place since yesterday, to catch Riou, is still 238 miles away, and it looks like Christmas Day will bring ideal conditions for this: Golding is driving towards the two boats with a refreshing wind from the south and should get farther. Especially since the leaders are now entering a zone of very changeable winds from more easterly directions. So maybe a leading group of four boats will form in the next two days, sailing within striking distance of one another.
In the last few days it was particularly impressive to watch at the top how well Mike Golding's brand new "Ecover" is doing on the wind. At times he sailed up to ten degrees higher than Sebastien Josse and easily took third place from the French, who has no swivel keel.
The icebergs that had been sighted in the region of the leading boats and are particularly dangerous at night have not appeared to have been an issue for about 24 hours. Since Jean le Cam passed some large boulders yesterday, no other skipper has reported the passage of ice.
The last few days were also positive for the Swiss Dominique Wavre, who is currently driving lonely in fifth place, around 700 miles behind Sebastien Josse and 1,000 miles behind the lead as well as 300 miles ahead of his pursuer Jean-Pierre Dick on "Virbac". Wavre cut a temporary gap of nearly 2,000 miles in half, and it currently looks like he's going to break below the 1,000-mile gap. And maybe soon he won't be alone anymore. "Virbac" approaches from behind and has lost about 130 miles off Wavre in the last 24 hours alone.
So the field is getting closer together, and maybe the sailing fans will actually experience a kind of restart in the Pacific on Boxing Day.
Ranking on Thursday at 4 a.m
1 BONDUELLE 56 24.44 'S 178 24.64' W 10 749.8 nautical miles to the finish in Les Sables d'Olonne 2 PRB 53 39.12 'S 179 03.60' W 50.0 nautical miles behind leader (ShF)3 ECOVER 53 46.76 'S 173 54.64' E 288.0 (ShF)4 VMI 53 50.40 'S 173 07.56' E 313.6 (ShF)5 TEMENOS 53 52.40 'S 150 45.00' E 1053.7 (ShF)6 VIRBAC-PAPREC 51 43.32 'S 143 11.32' E 1356.4 (ShF)7 SKANDI46 53.16 'S 134 19.56' E 1805.8 (ShF)8 PRO-FORM 45 41.24 'S 130 08.96' E 1985.6 (ShF)9 ARCELOR DUNKERQUE 48 05.44 'S 120 30.12' E 2240.9 (ShF)10 VM MATERIAUX 45 48.42 'S 118 33.84' E 2369.8 (ShF)11 OCEAN PLANET 43 30.32 'S 111 24.76' E 2706.4 (ShF)12 MAX HAVELAAR BEST WESTERN 46 56.84 'S 98 20.08' E 3124.1 (ShF)13 ROXY 45 44.20 'S 93 00.00' E 3353.3 (ShF)14 HELLOMOTO 45 49.48 'S 87 59.84' E 3556.8 (ShF)15 AKENVERANDAS 47 19.28 'S 83 47.24' E 3712.6 (ShF)16 BENEFIC 46 58.16 'S 80 59.56' E 3828.5 (ShF)ABD SILL ET VEOLIABD HUGO BOSS ABD UUDS ABD BROTHER