Denouement imminent

After belting along at high speed on a reach between Land’s End and southern Ireland, Giancarlo Pedote and Anthony Marchand rounded the famous Fastnet lighthouse at around midnight last night and continued with pedal to the metal all night long. In this way, they’ve managed to claw back a number of places since yesterday, even picking off another one this morning. Indeed, the two men on Prysmian Group have just overtaken the Fabrice Amedeo – Éric Péron duo and are now lying in 8th position among the IMOCAs (Sébastien Simon and Vincent Riou have just indicated their retirement following an electronics failure), around forty miles or so shy of the leaders, Jérémie Beyou and Christopher Pratt. There are about a hundred miles to go before they reach the finish line in this 48th edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race. Right now, the focus is on negotiating the Scilly Isles and, like all the leaders of the fleet, they’ve opted to slip between the TSS (traffic separation schemes) to the South and East. Next up, they’ll be on a single tack to Plymouth, which they’ll likely reach at around 20:00 hours this evening. Within this context, there won’t be any major moves to attempt nor any places higher up the leader board to pick off. Therefore, the main challenge will consist of trying to hold rank, in the knowledge that the objectives for the duo in this event were primarily to rack up miles with a view to qualification for the Vendée Globe, and to continue learning and getting to know one another in preparation for the Transat Jacques Vabre.