After a week of racing and a lot of ups and downs along the way we are in a four-way battle for the lead. We have Telefonica in sight just a few miles away and Puma and Groupama also in good position as the four of us drag race our way north.
After a long and frustrating few days head-butting a trough line we finally broke through and headed into the Indian Ocean high pressure before making the turn north.
The French team on Groupama chose early on not to deal with the trough line, instead to sail extra miles to the south to go around it.
This strategy came with a lot of inherent risk with the potential for a huge return or a huge loss. With typical French flair similar to their rugby team they took it on boots and all and at one point were separated from the fleet by over 200 miles. As it turns out the tactic may have worked, the magnitude of the gain or loss is yet to be determined but it seems they have avoided a monumental loss but lucky for us have not had a massive gain.
