Decisions had to be taken and they were not easy ones for the Solitaire du Figaro skippers, who after more than three days at sea are starting to feel exhausted. During the last 24 hours the situation has been under close scrutiny at the Race headquarters in Gijón where the organisers are getting ready to welcome the sailors. The fleet split into three separate groups, at the west, centre and east of the Bay of Biscay. If, at first it looked like the westerly pack was better positioned to flee from the high pressure ridge that was quickly forming and expanding later their gamble seemed not have paid them back. It was the group at the centre, instead, that could sail deeper south towards the finish line and escape what the French call the “pétole”, that’s the nearly total absence of wind.

According to the information from Météo France expert Sylvain Mondon who made a last minute computer simulation, the new ETA for most of the solo sailors is between 1.30 and 7.30 a.m. but who the winners will be is still in the unknown. The breeze will keep on coming from east/north-east and will increase as the boats will get nearer the coast. Unfortunately for the back of the fleet, is it very probable that the worst positioned boats will not benefit from this breeze and will accumulate more and more disadvantage.

At 14hrs today a cheerful Kito de Pavant called Race Committee by VHF and told them about a close encounter he had earlier with a… shark! “No worries, no damages to the boat either this time, but I find that quite funny” explained Groupe Bel’s skipper “because it was a whale last time and I have had enough, if you please.” De Pavant said referring to what happened to him and his co-skipper Sébastien Audigane during Transat Ag2r when they collided with a cetacean and were forced to stop to make repairs to their Figaro.

Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) holds a 1.5 advantage over second placed Eric Peron (Skipper Masif 2009) and 1.7 mile lead over third placed Yann Eliès (Generali – Europ Assitance). On the international front, Franco German sailor Isabelle Joschke (Sinergie) currently lies in 20th place 11.3 miles from the leader. Bernard Stamm (Cheminés Poujoulat) from Switzerland is in 23rd at 11.9 and Italian Pietro D’Alì (I.Nova.3) lies in 38th at 16.7 miles whilst Jonny Malbon (Artemis) originally from the Channel Islands, trails in 40th at 18.6 miles. Francisco Lobato (ROFF/Tempo-Team) has watched the leaders extend their advantage by a massive 42 miles as he lies in 45th place.