After leading the Vendée Globe for just around six hours, one vicious squall of nearly 50 knots took down Mike Golding’s mast this morning.
In less than two short minutes the British skipper’s seemingly cursed luck had struck again and the race which he has spent four years preparing for was over.
The toll in the
Golding is the latest to be forced out of the race since last Wednesday when Loïck Peyron lost his mast. Since then Dominique Wavre, SUI (Temenos II) had his his keel head snap off then Bernard Stamm, SUI, (Cheminées Poujoulat) suffered rudder bearings failure before being holed overnight whilst trying to moor in the
Yesterday it was Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2), leader for more than a week, who confirmed he had hit something and had damaged his rudder head mechanisms.
This morning’s shock news that Golding’s rig had been brought down was followed by Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty’s decision to abandon, heading north with Groupe Maisoneuve suffering from a compound series of problems.
After sailing in 40 knot winds with two reefs and a staysail, Golding had been in settled 20-25 knots winds for a matter of hours before he decided to set his large reaching headsail. He had been sailing for over two hours with this sail configuration and said later that he had never been overpowered. He was down below at his nav station checking the meteorology files when a combination of a sudden, unexpected squall and a big wave which dragged the stern off the boat off course, knocked the boat nearly flat. Golding had no time to regain control and the strain of accelerating down the wave at over 30 knots, fully powered up was too much for the mast which gave way.
“ It was knocked by a wave, not knocked flat so it was still powered up. The first thing you do with a gust is dial the pilot down while you work out if you have to do something about it or you can sit it out. There are very awkward seas and a big sea just pushed the stern round, so the boat was probably at 120-130 degrees and so the boat was very powered up at that point.” Explained a devastated Golding later, “The rig gave way very quickly so it was over in seconds. On the data feed you can see the wind gear stops at 49 knots and the boat speed was 30 knots. So it is just an overload on the rig. I wasn’t expecting the squall.”
“ The boat took off down the wave. I was at the nav station doing some met. The boat took off and I hit the pilot button, dialled down a bit, the boat swung round on the sea, I grabbed my jacket, opened the hatch and Bang. You can see it on the data chart it is just an amazing progression of the line and then just goes off the chart. The wind speed is 49 knots and the boat speed is 30 knots. It is pretty crazy.”
“ The time span of the acceleration from the gust starting to the rig going is two minutes, from the original gust.”
A numb, devastated Golding admitted later that though he had finally made it back into the lead of the race, as he did twice in 2004 before broken halyards robbed him of his chances of winning, he at no time had thought he had buried his Vendée Globe ghosts this time. It is the third time he has been dismasted in four consecutive solo round the world races.
And just as Golding had profited from the misfortune of Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2), so Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) seized the lead on the 1000hrs standings this morning, completing his own remarkable last-to-first recovery with a blazing 24 hr run of 466.6 miles which took him to within 2.1 miles of Alex Thomson’s 2003 24h record set in on the Le Défi Transatlantic race. Desjoyeaux is 14 miles ahead of Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement), with Seb Josse (BT) 43.3 miles behind the leader.
Jean Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac) is sailing north to try and find a more settled sea state and less wind to try and make a repair to his mangled rudder head mechanism, while 2004 winner Vincent Riou (PRB) reported today that he had hit a glancing blow to a growler last night.
Mike Golding, GBR (Ecover 3): “ It is not a rig problem, there as too much sail up in too much wind. I did not even have time to get to the sheet, to the winch to ease the sheet. Just looking at it after, the runner was pulled so hard that it stretched itself around the winch, and pulled the mark which is usually at the winch two feet. It is not a rig or a mast issue, it is just a simple case of force majeur.”
Asked if he thought that the pace of the race had contributed to his rig failure he said:
“It would be nice to think so, but no. But there was no sign of any backing off. To be honest the fleet was fairly conservative until
Vincent Riou (PRB): "I hit a growler yesterday evening. It hit the rudder and caused the boat to broach. It doesn't look like it has caused any damage. I left the boat heeled right over to get the rudder back on. The water was at 6°C, so that doesn't look very good for what lies ahead. Anything can happen. Everything can come to an end in a split second. Ahead, it's going to be the sea that will decide what speed we can adopt. The wind should be easing off in the next few hours and then, we will be able to accelerate away again. But for the moment I'm keeping the speed down to an average of 15 knots, as I don't like the look of the seas."
Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2): "During the night, the rudder got knocked about. The condition of the gudgeon has deteriorated because of the huge waves. I shall be heading a bit further north to find some calmer seas and carry out repairs, as I really must complete this Vendée! I remain hopeful, even if I know it's going to be a long and difficult operation. It's a bit like surgery, but we'll just have to wait and see… I'm really sad for Mike being forced out of the race. The UFO twisted the top of the rudder. I'm going to try to get it back in place and wedge it. That means making some wedges, which requires a bit of DIY improvisation. I'm going to be like Mac Gyver. Unfortunately I'm going to have to head north to carry out these repairs. The repair is going to have to remain out of the water to dry. I can't remember ever having so much wind in the
Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia ), who had only just heard the news that Golding had dismasted:
" Leading is good news for me but bad for Mike. It's hard for him. Up until then, he 'd had a good race. He is usually something of a 'follower' but this time he was sailing differently. He had taken some interesting initiatives. So it must be really disappointing for him. Unfortunately, damage is part of the game. My position at the front is something I couldn't even have hoped for. It's wonderful, really fabulous. You can't imagine how I feel. But it's not today that you need to be in the lead, but two months from now. First of all, you have to finish the race."
