Tom Laperche has already banked his Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe win. Everyone else is still fighting for theirs.
The 13th edition's champion crossed the line just after 3.30am on Sunday, but behind him the race remains wide open. Close duels, shrinking gaps, damage repairs and shifting weather mean nothing is settled, and in these conditions the apparently comfortable positions aren't necessarily the safest.
At the front of the Ultims, Thomas Coville (Sodebo Ultim 3) holds around a 50-mile lead over Louis Burton (Armand Thiery) with roughly 90 miles to run. That sounds like breathing room. It isn't, not near Guadeloupe, where a lead can melt like ice in the tropics. Coville passed between Anguilla and Saint Kitts and Nevis, while Burton has deliberately gone west, hoping his rival hits trouble. "Thomas is very strong and he has a fast boat. We've been fighting for several days. He's pulled away a bit, so we need to try not to be the one following. We decided to try passing to windward of the islands, hoping he runs into less favourable zones. That's part of the flair too, trying something."
Burton, expected into Pointe-à-Pitre this afternoon (Paris time) alongside his rival, hasn't lost his taste for drama. "I had a fantastic last night, weaving between the storm cells. The sky was beautiful, with stars, shooting stars and the islands." Postcard stuff, but with traps hidden in the scenery, chief among them the wind shadow off Basse-Terre. "Even the weather models don't really see what's happening there. How much time will we lose? It's fascinating to live through from the inside. And until the line is crossed, nothing is finished."
Further back, the Ocean Fifty fleet has turned into a genuine scrap. Basile Bourgnon (Edenred) had built a 130-mile cushion since 2 November, but the tropical depression tore that up. Pierre Quiroga (Wewise) and Thibaut Vauchel-Camus (Solidaires En Peloton by Delanchy) are now within 50 miles of his stern. "You don't get your health points back when you're at sea doing what we do," joked Quiroga, humour intact despite the sleep deprivation. "We navigated all night into the sea, through lightning, hurting the boat and ourselves. I think we hit almost 55 knots." His J2 out of action, he pushed on regardless. "We put ourselves in the red, but it's a genuine sporting performance."
Among that pack sits an unexpected visitor. Corentin Horeau (MACSF) leads the IMOCA fleet by around 215 miles and is currently sailing bow to bow with the leading 50-foot trimarans. "It's so funny having him next to me. We even ended up on a video call for five minutes after I accidentally called him mid-nap. These are rare moments of pleasure in this race." Horeau isn't hiding his satisfaction either, though he knows multihulls struggle more than IMOCAs in this unstable weather. "A bit of self-satisfaction does you good." He's wary too, after nearly retiring the previous day when his front hatch was torn off. "It was carnage. I wasn't far from abandoning. But it's all sorted now."
Further north, Anne-Claire Le Berre (Upwind by Merconcept), Luke Berry (Le Rire Médecin, Lamotte) and Laurent Bourgues (La French Fab) are dealing with short, vicious waves. "It's a bit of a war over here. We can't accelerate or we'll catapult into the wave ahead. I don't think anyone wants that today."
The Class40 leaders, meanwhile, have gone from washing machine to becalmed. Guillaume Pirouelle (Sogestran, Seafrigo), Achille Nebout (Amarris) and Pierre Leboucher (Institut Imagine) are bunched within six miles, stuck in a ridge of high pressure with a confused sea and sails that won't fill. "There's no wind at all, but still plenty of sea. I'm losing it a bit," Pirouelle admitted, using the pause to fix structural damage forward. Nebout has his own repair list. "Rudder trouble, a broken J2 furler, a broken checkstay. It was a bit of a massacre." A fresh depression, with winds up to 40 knots, is due to hit from tomorrow.
Djemila Tassin (Djemila Sailing, Belgium Ocean Racing), leading the pointy-bow Class40s, has finally found calmer water and calmer nerves. "I think these are the biggest conditions I've experienced solo. You stay tense until it stops, because every minute you wonder what's going to break." Her reward: flying fish. "It marks entering the tropical latitudes. We're leaving the cold seas behind."
In Horta, Pamela Lee (#Empowher) got back underway around 10pm after replacing her batteries, grateful for the effort behind the scenes. "It was an incredible team effort. Everyone rallied around my boat, I'm really touched by that solidarity." Six and a half hours later, Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande Mapei) also arrived in Faial, diverting with a back injury.
Elsewhere, Romain Pilliard (Use It Again) is racing again after a week of repairs at Roscoff following his collision with Violette Dorange's IMOCA Initiatives-Coeur. And in the biggest story that has nothing to do with the leaderboard, Jules Bonnier (Plastic Odyssey) diverted on race direction's orders after Benoît Sineau's (Ekinox-Rhétorés) distress beacon triggered on Saturday afternoon. Bonnier recovered his rival safe and well by 8.45pm.
In the Rhum monohull class, Kieran Le Borgne (Armor-Lux, Le Finistère Assurance) leads Patrick Isoard (Groupe Cogedis pour Enfants Du Mékong) and Tanguy Caradec (Eurvad). In Rhum Multihull, Damien Seguin (Arkea, Handicap International) remains ahead of Éric Péron (French Touch, Oceania Hôtels).
The gaps are closing everywhere. The hardest part now isn't making miles. It's not handing them back.
