The Swiss Dominique Wavre with his "Temenos" and the French Sébastien Josse on "VMI" will be the next skipper of the Vendée Globe fleet to reach the destination in Les Sables d'Olonne.
It's been five days since the new Vendée winner Vincent Riou with his "PRB" (the ship has now, after winning 2001 with Michel Desjoyeaux, won the toughest regatt in the world for the second time) the finish in Les Sables d'Olonne reached. Fourth and fifth placed Dominique Wavre and Sébastien Josse are now approaching the finish.
The two were 190 miles (Wavre) and 240 miles from their destination at around 4 a.m. In contrast to Vincent Riou, Jean Le Cam and Mike Golding, who approached Les Sables from the north, the two pursuers come from the south. At the moment they are fighting with wind from the east-northeast in the south of the Biskayum every meter they can swipe on the way to their destination. The arrival of Wavres is expected tonight. Josse will be four or five hours behind him. This ends a brilliant fight that the two have fought since Cape Horn.
Jean-Pierre Dick sails back another 1,300 nautical miles with his "Virbac-Paprec", 300 miles southwest of the Azores. Another 900 miles behind is Conrad Humphreys in seventh place. As a reminder: In Simonstown, not far from the Cape of Good Hope, Humphreys had to change one of his oar blades for two days while lying on a mooring buoy. When he resumed the race after a great technical performance, he was 17th and thus last in the race (with Hervé Laurent, Alex Thomson and Norbert Sedlacek, three skippers had already been eliminated at this point).