Vendée Globe

His Vendee Globe ambitions are thwarted for the second time, Alex Thomson has vowed to be back again in 2012. His team announced his official retirement, issuing a statement confirming that they are unable to complete repairs to his Open 60 Hugo Boss before the deadline of next Wednesday 1202hrs GMT, when the start line closes.

Thomson's team have announced his retirement, confirmed this afternoon by the race direction.

“Repairs would take weeks rather than days.” Thomson told vendeeglobe.org, “It is a much more complex and time consuming repair than the one we had to do before the start.”

“I am gutted, absolutely gutted. To have put everything into this for the last four years, and battling to get away like we had to do, this just feels so unjust.”

“Obviously we need to now sit down and look at the things we did and plan for the next one, but I think we were certainly one of the best prepared teams with one of the best prepared boats until what happened with the fishing boat.”

“It is hard to take but you look at what happened to Bernard Stamm in his third race ,out twice and fighting again after re-starting this time, and Bilou in the past with his mast track. It can be a cruel game, but you have to think that it brings you back stronger for the next time.”
“I will go home now, have some rest and then starting looking at what I do.”


Thomson became the fourth skipper forced to retire from this sixth Vendee Globe, but the British skipper vowed that his Vendee Globe dream is still alive:  A statement released this afternoon said:

"The damage sustained to his IMOCA Open 60 yacht HUGO BOSS on Monday night is not repairable by next Wednesday’s restart deadline. It is thought the damage was sustained by a collision with a submerged object. "

 

" There is a transverse crack that runs through the outer and inner skin of the boat. The crack extends 5 metres to almost the centreline.  The unidirectional fibres that make up the outside layer of the boat have peeled off from the start of the crack to the back of the boat. There is also a 10cm x 10cm compression to the hull which has pushed the core in and a deflection inside the hull."

 

Thomson said: “They think that the repairs are going take a matter of weeks not a matter of days, so it means I’m out of the race, that that’s, the end.  So four years and this is where we get to, it’s very disappointing. But enough’s enough, we’ve looked at it and if there was a possibility of fixing it we’d fix it. But apparently there isn’t a possibility. “

 

“It’s just awful, not just for me but the team, you know we worked really hard and built a new boat, just to get ready for this one race, and to be out of it just three days in just doesn’t feel right at all, it feels very hard to be back here again.”

 

But he vowed:  “We  will be back here in 2012 to do it again, we are not going to give up now. We know we’ve got a  great team of people and the dream isn’t over for sure, we’re just going to have to put it off for a while .“


Quoting the skipper, the release says: “There is an area of compression on the hull, which has also pushed the core in, plus there is a deflection inside the inside the hull which would signify an impact with something underwater. We have ruled out panel failure from the boat slamming into the waves as the panels run in the wrong direction for the crack.”

 

Asked if the structural damage was in anyway related to the fishing boat impact last month. “Of course at this stage we can’t say this isn’t anything to do with the fishing boat impact, we will continue to investigate.”  Explained Pascal Conq, the designer of HUGO BOSS.

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