There would be no magisterial sweep around the centre of the high for the IMOCA fleet though. The high pressure was expanding eastwards to block the way to the trade winds (just as we expected in the preview) and it was always going to be painful for those that were not far enough south when the high pressure moved.
To get south, the skippers had to deal efficiently with the slow progressive wind shift they would experience as they sailed around the high. The wind would shift from the west, through the north and on to the east as they sailed from the northern quadrant of the high, around the eastern side and into the southern quadrant. Picking the right moment to gybe from starboard to port was important in optimizing their speed south.
In the end, the leaders all gybed at about the same time – as soon as they were into the northerly wind that confirmed they were to the east of the centre of the high. This was the moment when the leverage between Thomson and the rest started to close out.
What settled it was that the more easterly boats now had to contend with the Canary Islands; they didn’t want to sail into the wind shadow to the west of the islands. So they started to give up their easterly position, and in this image from 15:00UTC on the 9th November we can see how the leverage finally closed out five days after the start.
When Vincent Riou (orange) and Paul Meilhat (blue) gybed to starboard to avoid the wind shadow, Alex Thomson (black) was able to cross in front of them on port, and gybe into a solid lead of ten miles over second-placed Meilhat. Five days of sailing, well over two hundred miles of leverage at its maximum and in the end it came down to a ten mile advantage for the Brit – you gotta love ocean racing!
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noted that it wasn’t Thomson at the top of the leaderboard at this moment. It was Boris Herrmann, whose position far to the north and west of the rest of the fleet made him closer to Guadeloupe. Unfortunately for Herrmann, he was never going to make it through the high in time to close out that leverage and take a real lead on the water.
Credit Trimaran/Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe.