Vendée Globe

The fifth week of the race that has just finished was quite simply amazing. It began with the Basque sailor, Unaï Bazurko abandoning the race and finished with the end of the race for three top names, Loïck Peyron (broken mast), Dominique Wavre (broken keel) and Bernard Stamm (damaged rudder bearings).

An amazing week, as in spite of the arrangements put in place by the race directors, several competitors passed close to drifting ice.  Amazing too because of the distance covered by the fastest boats with daily averages of more than 400 nautical miles, or in other words more than ten degrees of longitude covered each day and hourly runs with speeds above 20 knots. Amazing too because of the pace set by Jean-Pierre Dick (448 miles sailed in 24 hours, making him the fastest in the fleet, only missing the record held by Alex Thomson by twenty miles).  

In the 11h rankings this morning, the skipper of Paprec Virbac 2 had covered 2590 miles towards the finish at an average speed above 15 knots.  Last Sunday, he had just crossed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope.  On Tuesday, he will be at the longitude of Fremantle (in SW Australia).  A record for the Vendée Globe.

Now, there are only three keeping up this pace in the wake of the tall, fair-haired Southerner, Roland Jourdain, Michel Desjoyeaux and Mike Golding.  The others, who were in the leading group cannot or do not want to maintain this speed and have been left behind.  They may be wise or cautious for good reason, when we remember that this stampede to the east is going to last another three weeks, before they reach the Horn and the way out.  This week was also amazing because of the gap between the leader and the tail-ender in the fleet - the equivalent of the distance across the Atlantic - so we can look forward to another fascinating week ahead, as in the latitudes in which the racers are sailing, this is guaranteed.
 
A series of incidents
In the space of three days, three boats suffered major damage.  In chronological order:
On Wednesday at around 13h00 (UTC) Loïck Peyron's monohull was dismasted, as he was sailing 180 miles south of the Crozet Islands and 650 miles from the Kerguelen Islands.  Then, in third place, Gitana Eighty was sailing under Solent and one reef in the mainsail pushed along in thirty knot winds, in other words with a sail plan adapted to the circumstances.  Loïck was down below, when the mast broke and does not know the cause of the damage.  He decided to head for Fremantle under jury rig.  A long route at slow speed!  
On Friday, in mid-afternoon, the skipper of Temenos II informed his shore team: «I was at full speed, when the keel head broke and the boat broached. I bore away, furled the gennaker and lowered the mainsail. Then, I gradually got her back on track. The keel is freely moving and swinging under the boat. If it goes above 40°, that could damage the hull, which could lead the boat to sink. I am through grieving for this Vendée Globe». Dominique Wavre headed for the shelter of  Morbihan Bay (Kerguelens) which fortunately was not too far from where the incident occurred and he will be attempting to fix the keel in place temporarily in order to head for Australia.
On Saturday, Bernard Stamm, the other Swiss sailor in the race, informed the race directors: «My rudders aren't broken, but the bearings around the gudgeon attachment have worn away.  They are a bit like ball-bearings, but with pins. These pins have been crushed and broken. I'm going to have to think it through, but for the moment I can't see any solution.»  This morning the Swiss sailor, who had made a fantastic comeback in the race, was on his way to the Kerguelens to seek shelter and try to find a solution to allow him to continue his voyage, but not within the context of the race. Out of the thirty boats setting out five weeks ago, nine have now surrendered.  A heavy loss, when the fleet is only just entering the second third of the race.

Mike Golding at home
We knew that the British sailor would excel in the hostile latitudes and he has once again confirmed that by being so well placed in the rankings.  On Thursday, the skipper of Ecover, a veteran of the southern seas revealed to us how he saw things: «You can adopt the safe and smart policy like Sébastien Josse and that has cost him over a hundred miles, but the question is that really going to hurt you when you reach the Atlantic. If he keeps going with that policy he will be two or three hundred miles behind. And then the question is can he make up that gap going up the Atlantic, the answer is he might well be able to, but every mile you fall behind the leader is a risk. You just can’t just push your boat until it breaks. You have to take your boat to its limit and then stop. Without putting too fine a point on it you have to wait for the others to break. And it is not a foregone conclusion that it will happen, but if they keep going at this speed it as likely as it is for us. There is a lot to be said for, as the leaders are doing, like Jean Pierre is doing, keep pushing and keep pushing, and you find that you get a bit of bungee cord which allows you to get a bit of a margin, and whilst the bungee cord has always worked in this race so far, it does not always work that way, and at some point it may go and they will not be so easily caught.”
“ The trick is to be on the right side of the bungee.”  At the end of the week, Mike put his foot down, as the wind conditions – a strong NW'ly - enabled fast sailing: "The boat is three quarters out of the water most of the time, we are sitting on the last quarter of the boat. I am fairly sure that you hear the keel root come fully out of the water, because you can hear it, it stops making any noise." A deafening silence.
 
Some statistics
Looking beyond the 72-mile gap that Jean-Pierre Dick now has over Mike Golding in second place, the 11h rankings this morning showed a huge gap developing after Vincent Riou (PRB) in seventh place, 326 miles from the leader, a loss of more than 200 nautical miles over the week.  For the first time since the start of the race, the gains and losses have become more significant than the rankings.  Thus, Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) then ranked ninth is now fourth, but the gap with the leader remains almost the same: a little over 100 miles.  Sébastien Josse (BT) has fallen from second to fifth place and at the same time lost 140 miles. To sum up the situation, there is a leader, Jean-Pierre, who has made his getaway from a pack including in order Golding, Jourdain, Desjoyeaux, Josse and Le Cam grouped together within a hundred miles of each other, then another group now 300 miles behind from the first pack, and there within 100 miles of each other, we find in order, Riou, Le Cléac’h, Eliès and Guillemot.  Then, in eleventh place, we find more than 800 miles from the leader the incredible Samantha Davies (Roxy), who has just overtaken her fellow Brit, Brian Thompson and the ill-fated Bernard Stamm. Dee Caffari (Aviva), the other woman in the race is ranked fourteenth more than 1000 miles from the leader ahead of Arnaud Boissières (Akena Vérandas).  Raphael Dinelli (Fondation Océan Vital) and Norbert Sedlacek (Nauticsport-Kapsch) bring up the rear… almost 3000 miles from Jean-Pierre Dick.  
The Vendée Globe race has moved into a new phase.

Patrice Carpentier 

 

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