December 20, 2012
Race time: 40 days, 7 hours
Position: 250 miles to the New Zealand gate
Ranking: 1900hrs (UTC) (2000hrs, French time)
This time they didn’t wait for the people back home to sleep and traded the lead at the 1900hrs ranking. with Francois Gabart (MACIF) tooke the lead from Armel Le Cléac’h (Banque Populaire) after he had held this time for just 11 hours. Gabart was 3.5 miles ahead and averaging 20.7 knots – the fastest in the fleet – in this astonishing match race at the head of the fleet.
Gabart is 12 miles south of Le Cléac’h and they must head due east to the New Zealand gate in the 22-23 northwest breeze that will veer west and east off overnight.
Jean-Pierre Dick (Virbac-Paprec 3) lost more ground after his multiple gybes northeast and is 582 miles behind.
They may have separated in the Pacific but Bernard Stamm (Cheminées Poujoulat) was just 1.7 miles behind Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) on the leaderboard.
Behind them the chasing four have all lost most more ground as the front three have gybed south. Only Javier Sansó (Acciona 100% EcoPowered) has continued east. The strategies may take some time to play out but meanwhile Jean Le Cam (SynerCiel) had averaged just 12.2 miles in the last four hours and Mike Golding (Gamesa) just 11.8 knots.
