In the midst of the ridge of high pressure

This Saturday morning, whilst the leaders of the IMOCA fleet in the Transat Jacques Vabre are at the latitude of the Canaries, a Spanish archipelago which they’ve always chosen to leave to their East to avoid the wind shadows, the group to the West, where the duo of Giancarlo Pedote and Anthony Marchand is making headway, hit the ridge of high pressure as expected last night level with Madeira. The good news is that its progress stalled a great deal less than one might have imagined over recent hours. However, it’s likely to be a slightly more laborious day today, with a wind that will blow from pretty much every direction and fluctuate between 1 and 8 knots. Within this context, the separation from the group of ‘southerners’, which is already substantial, is likely to continue to grow. It’s worth remembering that right now, the pair on Prysmian Group, which is lying in 17^th position, laments a deficit of nearly 350 miles in relation to the leaders. As such, patience will be all-important this Saturday, since it’s only this afternoon or even this evening that its little group will finally get out of this fix and find themselves in the same weather system as their adversaries. From that moment, they’ll have to put pedal to the metal and as best they can begin to adjust their point of entry into the Doldrums, the famous inter-tropical convergence zone dreaded by sailors, which could completely shake up the hierarchy. The Italo-French pairing are very much aware of the challenges so they’ll be battling to hang on in there as best they can today.