Keep calm

This Wednesday morning, after what is already almost three days at sea within the scope of the 2nd edition of the Vendée Arctique – Les Sables d’Olonne, Giancarlo Pedote and his 23 rivals still out on the racetrack, are making headway at the latitude of Galway, some 250 miles offshore of the Irish coast. The fleet has a lateral spread of over 160 miles, with the group of ‘foilers’ to the west and the group of classic daggerboards to the east. For the time being, the advantage has automatically gone to the latter group, who are closer to the direct course, but the hierarchy should change significantly over the next 24 hours. In the meantime, the sailors’ focus is on successfully extracting themselves from a new zone of transition, which is synonymous with light winds. “Over the past 48 hours, we’ve made good headway under the front. Right now, it’s rather a slog due to a new ridge of high pressure we’re having to traverse. Just a matter of miles can make all the difference to performance. In my routing, I was able to slip through like a dream, but in reality the light patch is sizeable. As such, to the west and to the east, we’re all under its influence,” commented the skipper of Prysmian Group at around 08:00 hrs, whilst lying in 11th place and positioned to the east of his group, on an intermediate trajectory between the most extreme boats. “I’m where I wanted to be. There is no way of avoiding this famous barometric ridge. As such, you just have to be patient and try to track down the best possible trajectory for making your escape. I’m in a pretty positive phase. I just need to keep calm until the next section,” concludes Giancarlo, who should quickly latch onto around 20 to 25 knots of SSW’ly wind to continue his climb up to Iceland.