Vendee Globe - 1230 - 12/1/01

Mark Chisnell reports as Ellen consolidates her second place

It seems that Michel Desjoyeaux (red) did get slowed a little as he crossed towards the Falklands, but yesterday's hope that he would get stuck in the high pressure turned out to be wishful thinking on my part.

Nevertheless, Ellen MacArthur (light blue) did get 62 miles back on the flying Frenchman, and consolidated her position ahead of the chasing Marc Thiercelin (light brown) and Roland Jourdain (dark blue) by gaining a similar amount on them. Thiercelin is now the main threat, passing the damaged Jourdain who still has to complete his Chilean repair stop.



As we can see from the above image, the weather has remained complex, and although this picture shows Ellen, Jourdain and Thiercelin all to the north of the string of low pressure systems, it seems that both Jourdain and Thiercelin have spent at least some time in headwinds. Jourdain is the northern boat of the pair and he commented yesterday, "A depression has passed above me, I'm sort of sailing between upwind and close reaching with the shifting wind." And that might be why Ellen has got some distance back from them.



Those three low pressure centres are forecast to sort themselves into a single system pretty quickly. And that will then sit to the south-west of Cape Horn through Friday, which should keep Ellen moving and in good shape through to Saturday morning.