Vendée Arctique I Report Day 7

© Francesca Clapcich / 11th Hour Racing

Nearly seven days into the Vendée Arctique, and Francesca is in good heart onboard 11th Hour Racing, having managed to get some decent sleep as the boat cruised down the west coast of Ireland powered by a fresh easterly wind.

This morning 11th Hour Racing was still lying in fifth position, about 130 nautical miles behind the race leader, Sam Goodchild (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) who has 370 to go to the finish, and about 28 miles behind fourth-placed Violette Dorange (Initiatives-Coeur).

Dorange, along with third-placed Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande MAPEI), have chosen – like Francesca – the longer route to the finish around the west coast of Ireland, while Goodchild and second-placed Elodie Bonafous (Association Petits Princes-Quéguiner), opted to go through the North Channel and into the Irish Sea. 

It is still not clear if either choice will prove decisive. The final stages of this demanding race to the finish line off Les Sables d’Olonne look anything but straightforward, with a high pressure system sitting in the Bay of Biscay producing light and variable winds.

Onboard 11th Hour Racing, Francesca is fully up for the challenge of the remainder of the race. “Energy levels are good,”she reported in her voice note this morning. “I took time to get a lot of sleep during the night. It was a really nice flux of wind. I had 20 knots for a few hours and the boat was ripping. That’s where I caught up on some sleep, with the boat in compass mode, trying to maximize the straightlining.”

Intriguingly, both Dorange and Beccaria have chosen a route close inshore on the southwest corner of Ireland, even threading the needle between one of the off-lying islands and the Irish mainland. Francesca has chosen to stay about 10 miles out to sea and she’s quite happy to be there.

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“I am trying to play catch-up,” she said. “I saw them going really close to the land. I don’t know,” she added, laughing, “it can pay off. They can probably get into the new breeze a bit earlier, but there are also a lot of wind shadows and shifts. I am playing my game and, at the end, when we all arrive in Les Sables d’Olonne, we will see how it pans out.

“I have tried to stay slightly more offshore, keeping a bit more consistent breeze,” she added, “and not get stuck between the islands and stuff. I definitely wanted to do something a bit more straightforward, until the finish.”

Then she talked about the closing stages of a race that has taken her to the Arctic Circle and back: “It’s tricky for sure. There is this big high pressure sittting there, making everything pretty light and fluky. There is a lot of divergence between the weather models. It depends on timing, but some of them have us arriving downwind in medium-light winds, others fully upwind in light winds.”

The uncertainty suits Francesca. “I don’t have a lot to lose at this point,” she explained. “I am still behind the four of them – I mean Sam has gone basically. So for me it is quite positive that conditions are going to be hard at the finish, because that means there are more opportunities, more possibilities of gains.”

Unlike Dorange, who has lost use of her Code Zero sail, Francesca still has a full complement of sails to choose from. “I am staying focused and trying to keep to my routine – eat, sleep, drink, trim the boat, check the weather and repeat,” she said.

She also noted that this is now the longest she has been at sea, sailing solo, in her career, as she takes another big step towards her dream of completing the Vendée Globe in 2028. “It’s another milestone and I’m pretty happy about it,” she said.