Leg 2 reshuffle

Offshore boats led by Armel le Cleac'h come good as Figaro's close tentatively on Gijon

La Solitaire du Figaro is a cruel mistress, as Gildas Morvan on Cercle Verte has found to his cost this morning on the final miles of the race's second leg into Gijon in northern Spain.

Image above courtesy of Expedition with GRIB files from Predictwind

Positions at 1048 UTC  

Yesterday afternoon the boats spent sailing northeast past La Coruna, with Gildas Morvan on Cercle Verte still commanding a good lead, taking the most inshore course, but with Armel le Cleac'h on Banque Populaire looking threatening further offshore with the bulk of the fleet close in between.

By midnight UTC the lead boats had passed the final headland on the Bay of Ortigueira (ie Spain's most northerly headland) and now with the wind from behind were faced with the options of inshore or offshore. Given that the Galician coastline is notoriously mountainous and there would be the possibiity of some odd wind effects in shore, there was still mixed opinion over how far offshore to head. Among those who put in a hitch early were Nicolas Lunven on Generali and Thierry Chabagny on Gedimat. Leader Gildas Morvan in contrast sailed the furthest ofshore while the bulk chose to turn east before him, this group led by leg 1 winner Yann Elies on Groupe Queguiner-Leucemie Espoir, le Cleac'h, Jean-Pierre Nicol on Bernard Controls and Jeremie Beyou on Maitre CoQ.

Offshore worked out okay for Morvan for when he converged with le Cleac'h, he crossed ahead and repeated this at their next encounter at around 01:45 UTC. Meanwhile Michel Desjoyeaux on TBS was taking a very offshore route, some 32 miles from the shore, along with Paul Meilhat on Skipper MACIF 2011.

Sadly since then Morvan's tactics have been to stay inshore on the shortest distance to the finish line wile offshore there was a little more breeze. All seemed to be going well at around breakfast time, the boats all on starboard gybe with Le Cleac'h leading the charge offshore with Morgan Lagraviere on Vendee and Anthony Marchand on Bretagne Credit Mutuel Performance close behind. HOwever at around 0830 UTC the wind disappeared for the boats inshore as those offshore saw a significant left hand shift. And so at the latest sched, with just 24 miles to go, Armel le Cleac'h has pulled into the lead along with all the boats following him in the north as Morvan has plummeted to 15th. We are pleased to report that Sam Goodchild on Shelterbox Disaster Relief and Nick Cherry on Magma Structures are next to each other in 11th and 12th just to the south of the leaders with Fred Duthil on Sepalumic just ahead of them.

So not far to go, but all still to play for (as they say...)