| And so it begins... No sooner have Jean-Pierre Dick and his Paprec Virbac 2 headed north, licking their wounds (a mangled rudder system) and Mike Golding's Ecover 3 dismasted, so 2000 Vendee Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux and his Foncia have surged into the lead. Le Professeur, as he is known, took over first place at the 0930 sched yesterday morning and at the latest update has put 26 miles on second placed Roland Jourdain on Veolia Environnement.
Having been forced to restart 36 hours after the fleet, Desjoyeaux was at one point 670 miles off the lead and while his Farr designed Foncia may have a good pair of legs on her, most are attributing his amazing come-back to simply having the hammer down for harder, for longer. While this may be par for the course fully crewed, singlehanded, where there is all manner of risk from boat damaging wipe-outs or sudden autopilot meltdowns, it is a much more dangerous strategy, particularly on a non-stop round the world race (considering that they are not even half way round yet). As one reader of thedailysail in New York observed yesterday, you could be forgiven for getting superstitious that in this Vendee Globe it was unlucky to hold the lead. ...more |
