Alex Thomson arrived in Cape Town yesterday and officially retired from the race. Sebastian Simon in Arkea Pabrec should arrive this weekend and will retire. The damage to his boat from striking something very hard with one of his foils was too great a repair job for him to manage. For both its a sad end to 4 years hard work and the dreams of completing this race in a strong position. Sam Davies has not yet said she will enter port, which would mean retirement, and is still hoping to find a calm spot where she can make repairs. This brings the retirements in the race so far to 12% of the starters.
Two depressions, located about Latitude 57 degrees south are dominating the weather at the moment giving the leading group South Westerly winds of 22 to 25 knots. But coming up from the west is a large area of High Pressure which is already slowing the boats further back in the fleet. Apivia still holds her lead, but Linked out has moved into second place, 197 miles astern. Bureau Vallee has slowed right down, showing only 9 knots against the two in front both showing 18 Knots, and we await the reason. Behind these three, 7 other boats are in a smallish group, extending out to 550 miles behind the leader, Boris Hermann in Seaexplorer showing 14 knots over the past 4 hours, being caught by the lighter wind patch spreading east. All the rest of this group were making 16 to 18 knots average.
Pip Hare in 21st position has slowed up in the lighter winds, now lying 2,350 miles off the lead. Miranda Merron in 24th place is also slowed by lighter winds more than 3,000 miles behind. Charal closes in from astern, and would undoubtedly like more wind.
Apivia has now reached the point where the ice limitation moves south towards the Kerguelen Islands and so can sail down closer to the stronger winds. If it wishes.
Rapidy overtaking the fleet is the Trimaran Sodebo Ultim 3, which made 136 miles in the past 4 hours, 622 miles in the past 24 hours in her efforts to win the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest unassisted non stop circumnavigation of the world. They need to average abput that to get under the 40 day time.