Leg 4 Weather and strategic analysis by Sylvain Mondon at Météo-France

The skippers left Kinsale with a southwesterly wind at 9 to 13 knots and a cold front approaching. Armel Le Cleac’h sails south along the Irish coast upwind, tacking frequently to get to the Fastnet Rock. Before reaching the south most Irish cape the wind increases significantly to 20 knots. Brit Air leaves the lighthouse rock to port before the low pressure gets in and starts the Celtic Sea crossing reaching with a good southwesterly air. Over the night the wind veers to NW with the cold front moving over the fleet and increases to 21 to 25 knots and gusts topping 30/32 knots accompanied by some rainstorms. The boats’ speed goes up quickly averaging 10/12 and even topping 16 knots wave surfing downwind. It then becomes crucial not to go to far south because the strong winds moving to the Channel. In this gibing game, Armel Le Cleac’h shows his ability and gets to the lead at the Lizen Ven mark right at the southern entrance of the Channel during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. The Channel crossing starts with freshening westerly winds of 8 to 12 knots, the Figaro II fleet sails under spinnaker in lighter airs which go back up to some twenty knots at the passage of the Channel Islands and with a more stable SW direction. It’s in these conditions that Brit Air approaches the raz Blanchard first and the Cap de la Hague later when the tidal flows start to reverse to contrary. The last 15 miles to Cherbourg along the Normandy coast and to the finish are very intense. Corentin Douguet on E.Leclerc Mobile tries every possible move to get closer to Brit Air but Armel Le Cleac’h keeps faithful to his reputation, does not give in and triumphs in the Solitaire 2010.