Crepes Whaou! 3 ahead again

As the Vendee-St Petersburg Multi50 leaders round the coast of Denmark

Three races are at preent going on within the return leg of the Vendee St Petersburg this afternoon. At the front of the fleet, the two Multi50 trimaran leaders are making their way up through of the Oresund Straits between Denmark and Sweden and will soon be choosing which tack to be on, depending now on their strategy and the obstacles lying ahead of them. In third position, the crew of Crêpes Whaou ! 2 is just preparing to enter the famous channel, while the rest of the fleet are still battling it out in the Baltic.

Sometimes a race is down to a small detail. The crew of Actual, which led from the start of this return leg from St Petersburg, knows that only too well. To keep their rival at bay, Yves Le Blévec and his crew chose a route to the west of Gotland. Convinced they had made the right choice, they awaited this morning’s first sched to see how far they were ahead of Crêpes Whaou ! 3, only to discover that Antoine Koch, Franck-Yves and Kevin Escoffier, by passing to the east of the island had taken the lead. It may only be a small lead, but it was a difficult blow for the Actual crew to accept, especially when they thought they had been doing so well.

“We were surprised this morning," reported Yves Le Blévec. "When I got the rankings, my first reaction was to say that we had gained 30 miles over them, before realising that number three was ahead of 53. We’re currently tacking in the sound. We’ve just passed under the Europe Bridge. Crêpes Whaou ! went her own way as they went over the tunnel. In any case, the situation looks very confused in the North Sea. Lots of things can happen between now and then.”

This closely fought battle between the two leaders has enlarged the gap from those following on behind. The crew of on the older generation trimaran Crêpes Whaou ! 2, despite their hard work, is finding it difficult to keep up and can only hope the frontrunners will be slowed down at some point to enable them to get back into the running. As they round the top of Denmark, their hopes may be partly fulfilled: the latest forecasts from Météo France suggest that the two leaders will encounter strong headwinds and rough seas, while those following them, may well experience more favourable conditions.

1400 sched

1 Crêpes Whaou ! 3 (FY Escoffier) 1077 miles DTF
2 Actual (Y Le Blévec) 12 miles DTL
3 Crêpes Whaou ! 2 (L Féquet) 59.7 miles DTL
4 Région Aquitaine Port-Médoc (L Roucayrol) 150.4 miles DTL
5 FenêtréA-Cardinal (E Le Roux) 166.3 miles DTL
6 Naviguez Anne Caseneuve (A Caseneuve) 167.7 miles DTL
7 La mer révèle nos sens (P Hingant) 169.8 miles DTL
8 CLM (H Cléris) 264 miles DTL
9 π R2 (E Hochédé) 321.2 miles DTL