Women break another record

While I and 16,000 others were sailing around the Isle of Wight on Saturday, Dee Caffari and an all women crew, including her Vendee Globe rival, Sam Davies, were breaking the record for sailing around Britain and Ireland.

Good luck to anyone who wants to try and better them. Been there, never want to go again.

French 1-2-3 as British trio back in port

The Vendee Globe rankings board now shows six finishers as Sam Davies, Marc Guillemot, Brian Thompson and Dee Caffari all came in to Les Sables d'Olonne in the past three days.

Davies was first among the group but had to relinquish third place to Guillemot, who pipped her by less than two hours with the time in hand he was granted for helping out Yann Elies earlier in the race. It was a great finish by both sailors but Guillemot deserved his place after pushing his boat without a keel during the run in.

Thompson was relieved to nurse Bahrain Team Pindar over the line after struggling with keel problems for the last part of the race. He looked, from photographs, as if he would be ready to sleep for a week.

Andrew Pindar, the Scarborough businessman who sponsors the team, had invited me to join him at the finish. But I had just gone for a couple of days to the River Tweed in the hope of a spring salmon. It was a shame as it would have been good to see the boats in.

It's easy to forget that this west to east solo circumnavigation was a first for all four finishers. For Dee Caffari, it means that she has the unique distinction of being the first woman to solo the world in both directions.

If that first solo circumnavigation brought Caffari recognition as an adventurer, her Vendee performance must establish her as a genuine racer, capable of handling and looking after a state-of-the-art racing yacht in the most extreme conditions. It's easy to forget that, in spite of her excellent sponsorship package with Aviva, she is relatively new to full-on ocean racing with less experience than Davies who learned her skills with the elite French squad.

Thompson too will have learned much, not least about the future potential of Bahrain Team Pindar for future solo round-the-world voyages. Is this powerful yacht too much of a beast for a single skipper? Certainly Davies was able to show it the way home on her much older, if well proven, yacht, Roxy (formerly two-times Vendee winner PRB).

When the last boats have finished the British sailors should get together and discuss their future prospects. For all the British achievements, it is French skippers who occupy the first three places and that will be no surprise to anyone in ocean racing.

If other nations, including the UK, are to groom sailors good enough to challenge the best French skippers in the Vendee, they will need to emulate the French squad system and engage in the Figaro series. While talented individuals such as Mike Golding and Ellen MacArthur have come close in the past, no other nation has succeeded yet in breaking the French strangle-hold on this event. It's no coincidence that Britain's highest placed skipper in this race, Sam Davies, came through the French system.

Vendee fight to the finish

While first and second places are settled in the Vendee Globe after Armel Le Cleac'h finished at the weekend, yet another dramatic change of fortune means that Sam Davies, the highest British entrant has a chance of snatching third place.

Her nearest rival Marc Guillemot on Safran has lost his keel, a similar failure to that suffered a week earlier by Roland Jourdain. With less than 1,000 miles to the finish, Guillemot is sailing on under three reefs. Although he is now in fourth place on the water he has a cushion of more than two days in redress after standing by while the injured Yann Elies was rescued in December.

That may be just enough to stay ahead of Davies on Roxy, but he cannot afford to take too many risks while Davies may be emboldened by the chance to effectively leapfrog two places as third place is to be shared jointly with Vincent Riou, already granted his position through redress. She and her shore crew will have been doing their sums. At present she is expected to finish later this week. Now she has everything to sail for.

Fifth place would be a marvellous result for Davies in a boat that is much older than the newer designs of those sailed by Brian Thompson and Dee Caffari in her wake. Third place would be remarkable. Meanwhile Caffari knows she has a fighting chance of overtaking Thompson's Bahrain Team Pindar which is unable to sail under full power due to problems with the hydraulic rams that operate its canting keel.

There is every chance now the only two women to have entered the race will be the highest placed British competitors - another shot in the arm for women's sailing in the UK.

Winners and losers

As Michel Desjoyeaux begins to savour his Vendee triumph it might be an idea to assess the fortunes of other competitors as a race like this has many winners and losers when you look at its impact on their careers. For some it will not be evident yet since some changes will only occur in time. But here is my assessment of twenty of them. The rest either retired early or simply didn't register enough as racers:

Michel Desjoyeaux: an obvious winner, his reputation is enhanced and his future can only be defined by his remaining ambition.

Sam Davies: Another big winner, came to public attention in the UK, and popular with race followers, should help her get a a state of the art boat if she chooses to do the race next time.

Jonny Malbon: Failed to enhance his reputation and will leave a question mark for sponsors. Will Artemis stay with him in the long term? On the other hand he has built a good relationship with his sponsor who knows that his boat probably needed longer to establish itself.

Brian Thompson: Looked after his boat and enhanced his reputation as a reliable sailor. But does he have the potential to challenge the fastest French skippers in the long run?

Alex Thompson: Can he shake off the reputation of a "crash and burn" sailor? He needs to finish more often. While he came second in the Barcelona round the world race he was sailing with the immensely experienced Andrew Cape.

Mike Golding: Has nothing left to prove as a round the world sailor, but does he believe that? He knows what it is to be beaten by a Frenchman. Has it happened once too often? Sponsorship assured so he can go on as long as he feels.

Roland Jourdain: his already excellent reputation has not suffered, could easily have won and would have liked to have pushed Desjoyeaux harder in the later stages had he not suffered keel damage. Should be back next time.

Jean Le Cam: Will want to return one more time because he knows he can win it.

Yann Elies: Still young, will have learned a lot, will almost certainly want to come back. His retirement was cruel bad luck.

Marc Guillemot: A fine seaman, again with nothing to prove. A top five spot looks to be his. Again he may question whether he wants to come back in four years' time.

Loick Peyron: Knows he can win this race, still young enough, so I'm sure he'll be up for another go. Sponsors know they will get value for money.

Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty: Has youth on his side but needs to improve to keep his sponsors happy (and possibly to keep his sponsors).

Vincent Riou: A past winner, would have chased Desjoyeaux all the way to the line had he not damaged his boat going to the aid of Jean Le Cam. His reputation is secure and he will be back.

Steve White: Steve who? Some may have asked this before the race but not any more. He gambled everything on this race, scrambling together his entry at the last minute. If White set out on a wing and prayer that prayer must surely be answered with some solid sponsorship in future. He deserves it.

Dee Caffari: In spite of her previous circumnavigation she was one the least experienced skippers in the race at this level of competition but has done herself a lot of good, preserving her boat so far (if not her mainsail). Her sponsors should be happy.

Dominique Wavre: He was 53 when he set out. A fine sailor who acquitted himself well before his retirement, but will he want to return in four years time?

Sebastien Josse: Probably pushed too hard but will have learned much and should be back with confident sponsors. Could win this race next time.

Armel Le Cléac´h: This is a great result for Le Cleac'h who may yet secure second place in his first Vendee. In showing he can race fast and preserve his boat, he has to be a hot tip for the future.

Raphael Dinelli: Simply doesn't have the pace to win. Is it enough any more just to take part?

Bernard Stamm: Did enough to confirm his reputation as a solid performer. Will probably want and should get the sponsorship for another crack at the race.

Can there be any more surprises left?

Michel Desjoyeaux has pulled out a 500 miles lead on Roland Jourdain in the Vendee Globe. Even with the compression that will probably occur in the doldrums, that looks like too much to overhaul now as long as Desjoyeaux's boat holds together.

The winds became so heavy just north of Cape Horn last week that Brian Thompson made the prudent decision to head for shelter, making no headway for some time in order to stay south of the worst of the weather.

He and those around him - Dee Caffari and Arnaud Boissières - know they can't catch the leaders. Sam Davies in Roxy is also probably out of reach of Thompson now as she is nearly a thousand miles ahead. While the positions may change among the three behind Roxy its is difficult to see the running order change much nearer the front unless Davies can overcome the redress given to Marc Guillemot on Safran.

Steve White has stuck to his task on Toe in The Water and looks set to be rewarded with a top 10 finish. Getting round the world will be accomplishment enough for the relatively inexperienced and underfunded Englishman.

With less than 3,500 miles to go Desjoyeaux must be beginning to scent victory but those behind can't afford to slacken off. Everyone in the fleet will remember what happened to Mike Golding when in the lead. Equipment failure can happen at any time.

Thirty boats set out on this adventure. Twelve remain.

Podium result for Riou

To anyone who is not a sailor and to some who are, the news that a podium position in the Vendee Globe is already decided with 5,000 miles still to go for the leaders may come as a surprise, but such are the workings of competition juries.

The award of joint third place to Vincent Riou and PRB is some small consolation for the damage his boat received when rescuing Jean le Cam not far from Cape Horn. The award is the outcome of the jury's decision to grant Riou redress as a result of the incident.

It is important that redress is accepted in such circumstances since Riou put himself and his boat at considerable risk in going to the aid of his fellow yachtsman. Le Cam and every other competitor would have done the same.

I wonder what the organisers would have done had the incident involved the two leading boats? The same? Quite possibly but it would have produced an unsatisfactory outcome for a race to be decided so far from the finish.

The remaining competitors, however, seem determined that the finish will be decided on the water. With a lead of nearly 300 miles over his nearest rival, Michel Desjoyeaux appears to be sailing well within himself. It is not impossible that he could be caught by either Roland Jourdain or Armel le Cleac'h but the best hopes of the following boats must rest with the leader suffering some kind of damage.

As we have seen with so many retirements and breakages in this race, that remains a possibility. I cannot think of a boat that has had a glitch free race although Sam Davies on Roxy seems to have protected her boat well. Brian Thompson and Roland Jourdain have both been undertaking running structural repairs while Dee Caffari has been struggling to patch a delaminating mainsail. Marc Guillemot too, must find an opportunity to free a sticking mainsail.

The redress for Riou puts Sam Davies effectively in sixth place just now as the redress awarded to Guillemot for going to the aid of Yann Elies would put him ahead of her, although not by a substantial distance. Davies is a thousand miles behind le Cleac'h so he would take some catching at this stage of the race.

Of course, with such a distance to go, it is still very possible that the positions could change yet. It would only take a fierce Biscay storm at the wrong time to put the kibosh on all those hard earned miles. But all the boats left in the race now are looking for a finish.

Another dismasting

Vincent Riou's yacht, PRB, has lost its mast not far from cape Horn. Riou and Jean Le Cam, the fellow competitor he rescued are safe. This means the fleet has shrunk once more and Sam Davies moves in to 4th place (although still technically 5th when Marc Guillemot's redress is taken in to account). Michel Desjoyeaux, meanwhile has extended his lead. It looks a two boat race now between Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain. But can they go all the way? Expect more twists and turns in this extraordinary race.

Looking after Chuck

As the leading Vendee Globe skippers bear down on Cape Horn in preparation for the long haul northwards, Jean-Pierre Dick on Paprec-Virbac II is heading northwards in to calmer waters after damage to his second rudder ended his race.

Just half of the starting boats are left in the race and many of those have problems that are hampering their progress. I understand the mainsails on Jonny Malbon and Dee Caffari's yachts are deteriorating rapidly while Steve White has been struggling to repair his gooseneck - the bit that attaches the boom to the mast.

In spite of electrical problems, Brian Thompson on Bahrain Team Pindar has improved his speed over the past two or three days but Sam Davies has found herself in a pocket of slack winds. Davies has been one of the stars of this race, always upbeat and cheerful, always looking at the glass-half full. I'm sure that this attitude, added to her strong engineering skills, is helping her maintain consistency in a race where the "hares" keep falling by the wayside.

A few weeks ago there were a dozen yachts in front of her. Now there are five, all top class French racers. I don't expect Sam to have the raw speed to overtake them, but if she can keep her boat together, and one or two of the others in front have problems, a podium finish is not beyond her.

In her latest log she writes: "I used to be a "bow chick" (numero 1) on fully crewed boats, so I'm used to the tough jobs up forward whilst speeding along. But the difference now is that there is no back-up behind me, and I am no longer trusting a skilled helmsman not to "wipeout", "chinese gybe" or "stuff it" on each wave. I just have Chuck (the nickname she gives to her autopilot).

She also includes some new year's resolutions:

* Sail around the world.
* Take a photo of Cape Horn.
* Stop eating the Nutella out of the pot with my fingers.
* Do not fall asleep with the motor on charging the batteries.
* Sponge the bilges every day.
* Brush hair more than once a week.
* Eat more BUT eat less chocolate.
* Cancel the above resolution as it is impossible.
* Catch up some miles on the leaders.
* Be nice to Chuck, the autopilot.
* Take no risks.

The first one and last one are probably the most important reminders for anyone seeking to complete a round-the-world race. It's not bad advice for the potential winners, either.


During this mid section of the race I have been impressed with the way that Roland Jourdain has hung on to Michel Desjoyeaux. Every time that Desjoyeaux has looked like breaking away Jourdain has raised his game so that he remains just a few hours behind.

Stop press: sailors racing

The British newspaper coverage of the Vendee Globe race has been scant. Apart from a few news stories of the "British heroine goes to the aid of stricken sailor" type when Sam Davies - who happens to be young, pretty and female - diverted her course to help Yann Elies, there have been very few reports.

I was surprised, therefore, to find a report on page 11 of today's Daily Telegraph, focusing on Jonny Malbon in 13th place just 4,000 miles behind the leader. Then I noticed it said "special report" with "in association with Artemis, The Profit Hunter" at the end of the report. I don't like this kind of advertorial as it is dressed up to look like a piece of journalism when in fact the journalist is simply pandering to the wishes of an advertiser.

Then again, I would question the news values of British sports editors who have studiously ignored one of the most dramatic of sporting events. Why does this happen? I would list several reasons:

Xenophobia: there is a parochialism about sports coverage that, in this case, is magnified since the best round-the-world sailors are almost all French.

Obsession with football: this really does not need any other explanation.

Perceived elitism: it's not easy to be a round-the-world sailor and most of them rely on corporate sponsors. That most have not enjoyed privileged backgrounds but have worked for years to get the chance to enter this event does not seem to influence such judgements.

Technical terms: sailing is a highly technical sport and sailing writers must try to balance a desire for specialist information and terminology with non-specialist interest among a wider audience.

A world apart: This kind of sailing is so different, so extreme, that it's difficult to make comparisons. Even accomplished dinghy sailors cannot imagine the conditions in which this race is undertaken unless they have experienced them at first hand.

Sport versus adventure: Some editors and, indeed, some sailors, still equate round-the-world sailing with the "big adventure," that getting around the world is an achievement in itself - as it is. But the Vendee is a full on race. Mike Golding has sailed round the world many times. But his ambition is to win the Vendee and for that he must sail at speeds that will test any weakness in a boat. Some top "round-the-cans" sailors sometimes disparage endurance sailors, possibly out of envy. It is a different sport with different demands and they should understand this.

It's not just editors who must reflect on their prejudices. Sponsors must examine their expectations too. I am sure that none of them issue orders to the sailors to simply get around the course, although I am sure that many are dispirited when a boat fails early in a race.

Having said that, I have no doubt that Aviva, the sponsors of Dee Caffari, and Caffari herself, are looking for a finish in the Vendee. Caffari is a fine, gutsy and likeable endurance sailor, but she is not among the fastest female sailors in the world. Her status relies on having done something first. She was the first woman to sail around the world single-handedly against the winds and currents. If she finishes this race she will be the first to have done so in both directions.

Other sailors shouldn't begrudge her sponsorship but learn from the way she has positioned herself. Caffari delivers value to her sponsors, not by winning, but by sticking to her game. She is still learning and two round-the-world events must command the respect of her fellow sailors.

Sam Davies demands even more respect. Caffari has the advantage of one of the new generation of faster boats but Davies is 800 miles ahead of her in an older boat. In turn, Caffari is 1,600 miles ahead of Jonny Malbon, also skippering a well-sponsored modern boat.

None of this is to disparage the achievements of Malbon and Caffari, but simply to put their performance in context with that of superior sailing at the head of the fleet. It seems unfair to write this from the comfort of an armchair when all these sailors are giving their all in the world's most inhospitable seas. But those who sail understand these differences and so should a wider audience.

It is more difficult to pass judgement on Brian Thompson who has been struggling with a high performing new boat, spending more time below deck than above in the past two weeks, making repairs. But unless he can improve on the speeds he set earlier in the race, he too will know that he must work harder to get in to the French-dominated big league.

Thompson does not strike me as a "crash and burn" competitor but as a dogged performer intent on going the whole way. He is one of the fleet's nice guys and I want him to do well. But I'd like to see him going a bit faster. How can I say this of a family man when sailing is so dangerous? The danger is a given. Thompson and the rest of them are there because they choose to be there. They put themselves on the line and know that their times and performances will be scrutinised in the data logs. They look at the same data and they know, in their hearts, that Michel Desjoyeaux is a sailor apart. Even Golding said that and Golding can match the Frenchman for speed.

The British might look at the elite French squad system that prepares its sailors for these events but you can't say that of Steve White, the British skipper of Toe in the Water, who got to the start line in an underfunded yacht through the generosity of a handful of supporters. Yet today he is 800 miles ahead of Artemis.

For this reason the Telegraph should have refused the Artemis shilling and told the story as it should be told. Its readers deserve better and so does sailing.

Elies safe

Yann Elies, the Vendee competitor, has been rescued today by the Australian navy. His boat Generali, has been abandoned, under a light sail. Like a toy yacht on a park lake it should sail on until a motor launch with Generali team members can meet it. The boat has a tracker so its position can be monitored.

So that's another one gone as Michel Desjoyeaux at the front of the fleet maintains his lead with Roland Jourdain staying close. The best that the rest can hope for now is that a mechanical failure or damage (by no means unlikely) hampers Desjoyeaux's progress. I don't think another sailor in the fleet has the ability to catch him and that is not to underestimate the others. It is simply that Desjoyeaux is so exceptional.

This means that 12 of the original fleet of 30 are now out of the race. With more than half of the race still to run it would not be surprising to be looking at a final retirement list of two thirds of the starters.

Another thing about Desjoyeaux is that he very rarely admits to any problems. All of these skippers have had mishaps of some kind and we hear of them regularly in their reports. But if anything is worrying the Frenchman, you wouldn't know it. He said today he been playing Sudoku to keep himself occupied!

Of the two women starters I think that Sam Davies is in with a shout of a top five spot. For Dee Caffari there is a strong incentive to finish as it would make her the first woman to have rounded the world in opposite directions.

Vendee rescue underway

I was meeting up with old sailing friends yesterday at our 3Com starboard watch annual reunion, so missed the news that Yann Elies had broken his femur.

Marc Guillemot, who diverted course, has taken up station not far from Elies's yacht. Elies, meanwhile has managed to get some drink, a little food and some pain killers inside him and has been able to fashion makeshift bed and get some sleep. This is important because he must wait now for the arrival of the Australian frigate, HMAS Arunta, the rescue ship, which is due to reach them on Saturday afternoon.

Sam Davies on Roxy is also heading towards the scene. The yachts are there for moral support as much as anything. They will not try to rescue Elies. It's too dangerous for yachts to run alongside each other in pitching seas as their masts would most likely lock together.

The injury brings back memories of sailing in the southern ocean on 3Com when we had to rendezvous with another yacht, to pass over morphine for a badly injured crewman on Time and Tide. We passed the medication over on a line. In that case, both the yachts were fully crewed. In single-handed sailing there are fewer options.

But the good news for Elies is that a rescue is on its way and he is tucked up and reasonably warm. No-one should be in any doubt, however, of the seriousness of a bad injury in such an isolated place. Sam Davies herself blacked out briefly yesterday when she injured her arm. Fortunately she suffered no more than bad bruising.

Had Elies been left exposed or unconscious on the deck of his yacht he would have been in much bigger trouble. As it is, the rescue, so far, is going smoothly. It just takes time because of the distances involved.

Meanwhile Michel Desjoyeaux has been extending his lead with Roland Jourdain not far behind him, but these two have moved more than 100 miles ahead of third-placed Sebastien Josse. Jean-Pierre Dick has completed a rudder repair to Paprec-Virbac II and is heading south east to rejoin the fleet, having lost more than 600 miles since the breakage.

Guillemot says he will stay with Elies "as long as it takes." He says:
"The race was yesterday. Now we've moved on to something else. I had a similar experience a few years ago. I'm just trying to talk to him, to reassure him. The subject doesn't matter. He knows he can rely on me. It's more of a psychological help than a physical one, but that's important, because in general it's the head that looks after the rest of the body. That will help him, while he awaits the arrival of the rescue team."

Golding is dismasted

Got out of bed, brushed my teeth, got dressed, fired up the computer, clicked on to the Vendee positions and there was Michel Desjoyeaux at the front of the fleet. Where was Mike Golding?

He's floating around the southern ocean without a mast. He had grabbed the lead but it was short lived before his boat was hit by a 50 kt squall that took away his mast and sails.

This means that Golding is out of the the race and with his dismasting goes any hope of a British win. The nearest Brit now is Sam Davies in Roxy, nearly 900 miles behind the leader, in 10th position. She's performing exceptionally on Roxy but her older boat can't hope to match those of Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain for speed (although it may prove tougher in this race of attrition). The reality is that there are nine fast Frenchmen ahead of her.

I'm so saddened for Mike. But he can come home - and he still has a few sea miles to cover yet - with his head held high. He gave it everything and has nothing more to prove as one of the world's best long distance sallors.

Heavy weather takes its toll

Bernard Stamm's boat ran aground in heavy weather last night so his Vendee race is run. I expect he'll be keeping Dominique Wavre company for quite a while until technical help arrives. Someone saw the funny side.

The top five followers are just about holding on to Jean-Pierre Dick but they're having to sail fast to do so. Expect another breakage soon among the front runners. It's not a question of "if", but "when" and "who"?

Down the ranks, Sam Davies is still charging on Roxy, 90 miles ahead of Brian Thompson. Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty, on the other hand, has slowed right down. He was among those caught in the heaviest winds over the past two days, suffering a series of technical problems: autopilots, torn genoa and damaged mainsail halyard on Maisonneuve.

Over the past 48 hours, all of those at the rear of the fleet have suffered two big depressions with winds of 45 knots, gusting to 60 knots. That's a lot of wind.

It was noticeable that although Loick Peyron is under jury rig and out of the race (although he has not yet been posted as officially retired) he was making better progress in the last session than Steve White in Toe in the Water and has maintained consistently faster speeds than Pete Goss, slowly heading for Capetown in his Cornish Lugger.

Roxy rocking along

Sam Davies must be cock-a-hoop that she has moved in to 11th position in the Vendee Globe, overtaking both Bernard Stamm, now in the Kerguelen Islands, and Brian Thompson.

Davies has a proven ocean racer in Roxy - a former Vendee-winning yacht - but its design has been overtaken by the newer, faster designs, including Bahrain Team Pinder. The Pindar yacht is powerful but it seems that Thompson has been finding some limitations in performance although it isn't clear from his reports what these may be.

Stamm has steering problems that have forced him to join Dominique Wavre in the Kerguelens. Thompson, meanwhile, seems to have lost out, opting for a route to the north of the Islands, the only boat to have done so, so far, although others following.

At the front of the fleet Jean-Pierre Dick has made the biggest break in the race so far, pulling more than 70 miles ahead of his nearest competitor, Mike Golding. Golding and the others must stay with Dick if they are to maintain their place in the same weather system. The boats are steadily becoming less packed than they were, as would be expected. It's extraordinary that they remained so tightly packed for so long.

A flavour of life on deck

Mike Golding's choice of a more southerly routing in the Vendee Globe - a bold move given that Sebastien Josse has retaken the lead on a northerly track - looks to be paying dividends, nevertheless, with an 18 kt average, better than his closest rivals, during the last session.

Golding is within 25 miles of the lead with five boats bunched inside this narrow gap. The Southern Ocean has provided relatively benign and near perfect sailing conditions in the past two or three days, but the ability of these skippers to maintain pressure on each other seems relentless.

Golding summed this up a couple of days ago in a short report: "Everyone is looking to do a breakaway. Sébastien Josse (BT) in the north might have a bit of leverage there, but everyone is looking for a bit of leverage to get themselves away. It is hard to imagine going around the world and not seeing someone split away. You may see the boats group up more and I am surprised that the entire spread of the fleet is quite so small back to back - whether this will continue or not remains to be seen."

He paid tribute to the skippers doing their best to stay in contention further back: "Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pinda) is still very clearly in play. You look at the split in the British competitors and it is not very big. Dee Caffari (Aviva) is currently less distance from the front than I was in the last Vendée Globe and I went on to lead up the Atlantic. However, the person who is sailing quite extraordinarily well is Steve White (Toe in the Water). He is doing well with the boat and has surprised a lot of people."

Golding is the only British skipper so far to be disrupting the all-French party at the front of the fleet. There has been little evidence in the last week to suggest that pattern may be altered. One of the fastest skippers further back has been Bernard Stamm who has moved in to 14th place between Thompson and Sam Davies on Roxy (15th).

Stamm has moved much further south than Golding and it will be fascinating to see whether his gamble pays off. It is the kind of move that can make a big difference, either way, in a skippers fortunes. The leading skippers have been unwilling to take such big risks but those further back have little to lose and everything to gain.

The ranking information and tracker boards can provide us with so much sophisticated information these days that the armchair race followers have almost as much information as the competitors.

But what the boards can't show you is just what it's like out there for the sailors. A coloured arrow for 25 kts of wind cannot describe the numbing wind on your face, the puffiness of sodden fingers or the cloying dampness next to your skin. Sam Davies gave some flavour of life on deck in an email where she was outlining the difficulties of making sail changes at night:

"I never cease to be overawed by these midnight manoeuvres, in a lot of wind, pitch black, up on the bow as Roxy hoons along. You get the feeling of immense solitude, coupled with the power of the boat and the wild waves. Everything is monochrome and the black silhouette of the mast and sails tower over me.

"Sometimes, when I am on the bow, and Roxy takes off on a surf, the bow is way out of the water and I almost feel like I'm flying. The down-side is that, quite frequently the surf ends with a nice wave over the deck, and that is cold! But before you say it, don't worry, when I am on deck I am always clipped on with my super Spinlock deck harness, so I don't take any risks."

Never mind what she says about being clipped on. Standing on the bow of a bucking boat in a 30 knot wind and a confused sea on your own at night, hundreds of miles from land, takes a rare inner strength. There is no-one to see you perform your heroics and you cannot expect sympathy since it's entirely your choice to be there. But you deserve admiration in bucket loads and you might attract a little envy too from those who understand that engaging with the elements at their rawest is living indeed.

Following pack fall behind

The following pack in the Vendee Globe now find themselves in a different weather system from the leaders. This one has lighter airs, meaning that it becomes ever more difficult to catch up. But there may be a little reordering in this group during the next day or two as both Bernard Stamm and Sam Davies are closing in on Brian Thompson.

Thompson seems to be struggling to get the best out of Bahrain Team Pindar which, in terms of its righting motion, is one of the most powerful boats in the fleet.

The followers, however, have the benefit of reading the strategies of those ahead and they would do well to recognise the advantage won by Jean-Pierre Dick in taking the most southerly route and stretching his lead to nearly 40 miles. Meanwhile Michel Desjoyeaux has picked off yet another of the leaders, moving to sixth place.

Sam Davies gets her kit off

Sam Davies looks to be enjoying her race on Roxy in the Vendee. As the competition and the weather heats up, she's shed her foulies and donned her bikini. Among all those rugged weatherbeaten Frenchman, she has revealed her secret media weapon - a belly-button stud.

It's still not quite enough to push John Sergeant off the front pages but it just might begin to arouse one or two tired sports editors - the sort who like nothing more than a Wimbledon knicker shot. Of course if she were to shed a little more she could wake up the Sun newsdesk too.

I was going to headline this note: "Sam Davies sheds her foulies," then I thought: what would the Sun headline say?

Wavre back in the fight

It's great to see Dominique Wavre - forced to return soon after the race start - fighting his way back in to the following pack as the Vendee fleet heads in to the Doldrums. Sam Davies is doing well too, overtaking Brian Thompson who must be disappointed to find himself in 13th position behind a much older boat as Mike Golding shifts in to 7th place less than 90 miles adrift of the leader,Loick Peyron.

I would expect the leaders to be very close just now to the latitude reached by Pete Goss in Spirit of Mystery but I can't see his weblog as I post this note. I have posted the link anyway so you can see for yourself when the blog is fixed. Vendee links are in the right hand side-bar.

Thompson may be struggling now but his boat is powerful enough to pick up steam as the fleet heads south in to windier waters. His challenge now is to keep in touch in the light winds. The leading Frenchmen are going to take some catching but Golding isn't letting go. The race has been remarkably open so far, the lead changing hands often without anyone getting too far ahead. As the fleet leaves the Doldrums it may give someone the opportunity to make a break. We shall soon see

French skippers dominate early Vendee running

It's still very early days in the Vendee Globe race, but as the boats approach Madeira with nearly 800 miles already covered it's disappointing as a Brit to note that the top 10 places are held exclusively by Frenchmen - and this is without Michel Desjoyeaux who is putting in some strong times after returning to the start.

The next four places are held by British skippers, two of them women. Sooner or later I would expect Mike Golding and Brian Thompson to begin mixing it in that leading group although Thompson must still take a four hour penalty he incurred as a result of a rule infringement just before the start.

The British women, Sam Davies and Dee Caffari are sailing exceptionally well. Davies has a second generation boat, less powerful than many others in the field including that of Thompson who still trails her.

While Caffari's boat, Aviva is a more powerful third generation yacht, identical to Golding's Ecover 3, she has much less experience in downwind racing at this level. To be keeping pace with Golding shows just how much her technique has improved in the past year.

It's no surprise, however, to see Davies doing well as she trains with the elite French squad. The squad system seems to be paying off just now but there is still a long way to go. All the same, you wouldn't be betting just now against yet another French win. I still think that Thompson has the power and Golding the experience to mount strong challenges but they cannot afford to let the leaders move too far ahead.

When leading boats begin to pick up new weather systems ahead of the rest it can really split the field. So tactical decisions over the next two or three days could prove crucial. Keep an eye on Dominique Wavre. He's been putting in some blistering times after his early reversal.

You can click on the Vendee Positions link in the right hand side bar to keep up with the times.

Are the Vendee boats tough enough?

Nine boats of the 30 that set out on the Vendee Globe - almost a third of the fleet - have been forced back to port, including Alex Thomson's Hugo Boss.

There is still plenty time for them to catch up as Dominic Wavre is proving, back in the reckoning after returning to the start on Sunday for electrical repairs.

The weather has been rough with 55 mph winds but the fleet has to expect these conditions in a round-the world race. If so many boats are experiencing such problems at the start of the race, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the event.

I think we're going to be looking at a lot of withdrawals before the race is finished. There is no turning back in the Southern Ocean.

Speed and seaworthiness

It raises the question of whether some designers have struck the right balance between speed and seaworthiness. You should never compromise on the latter for round-the-world sailing but, such is the technical input in to modern racing yachts, that I wonder if some designers are tempted to under-engineer, however unwittingly, as they strive to build the fastest boat.

Then there are the skippers themselves, under pressure right from the start although, as circumstances have shown already in this race, fortunes can be reversed in a matter of hours.

Sam Davies has the right idea. Her latest report shows just what is involved. She is no Amazon but what she lacks in body strength she makes up for in guts.

Enormous waves

She says: "It was pretty rough out there yesterday - I saw gusts of 55knots of wind, and the waves were enormous. I had set up my strong wind configuration in plenty of time, and Roxy hung in there under pilot as I braced myself at the chart table. It was full-on!

"The front went through early in the evening with a nicely timed wind shift that meant I was sailing directly into the path of a big ship. It was pretty close, as I could easily see the ship and there was close to zero visibility, so I had to crash tack to avoid it.

Bucking bronco

"Luckily, due to the wind shift, the tack put me on a perfect course. However, because of the urgency of the manoeuvre, I had had no time to do ballast or stacking. So, as a consequence, I spent my night stacking (sails) to windward, in a bucking bronco. As you can imagine it was pretty much impossible!

"So, right now, things are drying out. There is a nice 15 knots of wind and we are just about to round Cap Finisterre, where I should be able to put the gennaker up. I am totally shattered. It has been a big start to this Vendee Globe. I am desperately in need of some sleep and rest, to try to get rid of the cold I left with on Sunday. I also need to have some time to clean up the oil that is sliding around the aft compartment. I reckon I am not the only skipper with these needs."

Sam is holding her position well just outside the top 10. The leading Briton now is Mike Golding who moved in to the top 10 during the day.

Naked truth

I have only met Sam in her foulies so was surprised to find how she looked in her warpaint for this Daily Mail coverage (well, not that much coverage!) which, being the Daily Mail, just had to tell its readers that Samantha sometimes likes to sail naked (this blog would never stoop to such blatent sensationalism). Save it for the Equator Sam!

By my reckoning she's almost within binocular range of Brian Thompson. Now there's an incentive.

Whales make waves in transat

A fifth place for Sam Davies and Roxy in the Artemis Transat race was very much what I expected. Although some might point to the three retirements that elevated her position, the whole point of long distance solo racing is to get your boat to the finish.

The race was won for the third time by by Loick Peyron of France on Gitana 80 who finished the race in Boston with a time of 12 days 11hr 45min 35 sec, just over three-and-a-half-hours faster than the race record set four years ago by Mike Golding.

While Roxy's competitiveness has been diminished by the new generation of Open 60s, she is a proven design after completing (and winning) two earlier Vendee Globes and should give Davies every reason to be optimistic of completing the round-the-world race that starts in November.

It should be noted that three of the new generation boats - those of Mike Golding, Brian Thompson and Jonny Malbon, did not even make the Artemis start line, in two cases due to keel problems and the need for further testing.

The durability of some of the newer canting keels in round-the-world sailing has been the subject of some debate recently, not least because it raises significant safety issues for skippers. No-one wants to shed a keel and capsize a thousand miles out in the Southern Ocean.

Davies was one of two skippers who had collisions with whales during the transat race. Such hazards should not be taken lightly. You rarely hear anyone speaking up for the whale in these circumstances. It is as if the whale gets in my way, so tough.

But there is an argument that whales are not so much a hazard for racing yachts as the yachts are for whales. Whales have very good hearing. Is it beyond our capabilities to create some kind of ultrasonic device that would deter them from coming close to yachts?

Moreover the torpedo shape of the kanting keel is more hazardous for a whale than than a flaired keel. The torpedo acts like a hook. I haven't heard much discussion of this problem, yet it's a very real and serious issue for racers (and whales).

The very nature of round the world sailing means that some boats will not finish the Vendee. The race is a combination of speed, sailing ability, endurance, robustness of design and seamanship. This last point should not be underestimated. Seamanship is about taking account of many possibilities and trying to reduce risks in what is inevitably an event full of risk.

The transat will have been a disappointment for Dee Caffari who had the benefit of a new boat. No-one can question her gutsiness after sailing around the world alone against the winds and currents, but does she have what it takes to compete with the best French and British sailors in downwind events? She still has much to prove.

Three Sheets in the Wind

This was oh so nearly the title of my new blog, changed only because it might have given the misleading impression that I am inebriated much of the time. In fact it's only some of the time.

I never knew what the phrase meant until I looked it up on the web where it says it refers to sailors who have had a few drinks too many.

It was an expression used frequently in my family when I was growing up in Yorkshire. But there the phrase had a broader meaning. Yes, it could refer to someone who was the worse for drink. Alternatively it was used to describe someone who seemed nonplussed or confused, a condition that would account for much of my life.

Indeed when the waves are coming this way and that in a confused sea state I'd say it is a fair representation of my thinking patterns when sailing. Left brained and right brained thinking are meeting to create the perfect brainstorm.

Yachts are technical machines, designed to handle unstable systems. If understanding the numbers is a science, reading the wind is an art. Combining the two intuitively in race conditions requires the kind of skills for which I have the greatest admiration.

Add to this a whole new language, then you can begin to understand how someone who struggles enough with plain English might sometimes have trouble telling his luff from his leech.

So why do I do this stuff, not just casually, but the kind of racing where you have to tie your bowlines under pressure? It's a question I ask myself frequently. The answer always comes down to the same thing: it's the people.

For someone who works most of his time alone, I like the challenge of teamwork, the opportunity to be a human part of an imperfect machine, solving ever changing problems created by complex systems. Or maybe that's baloney and it's just the sea and the wind.

If you look in my sailing section here you can see the kinds of things I have done. I came late to sailing, having hardly stepped on a yacht before heading from Rio for Cape Horn and the Southern Ocean in the 1996/97 BT Global Challenge round-the-world race.

That shared experience of adversity led to new friendships and more sail racing. I even bought a dinghy and sailed that for a while. For the past three years, however, fishing has taken over much of my leisure time. Sometimes sailing and fishing have met head on, as they did when I took part in the Round Britain and Ireland Race in 2006, losing a day of my late summer trip to the River Dee as a result.

Now the Financial Times has asked me take over its sailing coverage. I have quite a few plans but I'm kicking off my new slot today with a piece about women in sailing, focusing on Sam Davies, competing just now in the Artemis Transat race. She's a lovely young woman and I wish her well.

For myself, I have no idea what the future holds but I know this much - it's going to be fun. So let's go sailing.