One month since Vendée Globe solo round the world race started in Les Sables d’Olonne on Sunday 6th
November the majority of the 24 boat fleet spans some 4000 miles. As
leaders Armel Le Cléac’h and Briton Alex Thomson – 39 miles apart this
afternoon – close towards the longitude of Cape Leeuwin 220 miles away
from them on the south west corner of Australia, a posse of nine
skippers are approaching or have just passed the line of the Cape of
Good Hope. The southern oceans are exacting a toll.
Ironically Shiraishi appeared to have just weathered the worst
weather of his race. During Saturday he had reported safe passage
through 40-50kts winds with six metre waves. But when the mast top
snapped he reported that the wind had dropped back to just 20 or so
knots. He was inside the boat and heard a loud crack. He is heading to
Cape Town which was about 305 miles to his NNW when the breakage
happened. The first skipper from Asia to compete in the Vendée Globe,
competing in memory of his late friend and mentor Yukoh Tada, received a
large number of messages of solidarity from fellow skippers.
“Your
Spirit and the Spirit of Yukoh will carry on with me. I will keep taking
it for you. My thoughts are with you and you are with me in spirit.
Yukoh is with me and I think a lot about you. Keep the spirit up,”
offered Hungarian skipper Nandor Fa from Spirit of Hungary. He was only
17 miles from Spirit of Yukoh and had been racing closely with
Shiraishi. The two skippers were firm and long time friends after
meeting in 1994-1995 during the Around Alone race, and Fa knew Yukoh
from competing in the preceding race.
But damage caused in the strong winds and seas generated by three
different low pressure systems has been a recurring theme on this fifth
Sunday of racing. Failure of the halyard hook on the mainsail mast track
has affected both Jérémie Beyou on Maître CoQ in seventh place and also
Arnaud Boissières on La Mie Câline 2200 miles further back in 14th
place. Beyou had sailed north east without his mainsail towards the
more sheltered waters of Amsterdam Island and had slowed to three knots
late this afternoon.Arnaud Boissières was making 13kts and appeared to
have solved most of his problems.
Fa, who became the 12th skipper to pass the longitude of
the Cape of Good Hope at 1219hrs TU this afternoon, confirmed he had to
cut his personal favourite A7 gennaker free after it split in half in a
big gust yesterday. “After my autopilot turned off by itself for the
second time, my boat gybed with the mainsail and the A7 gennaker. I
stopped the boat to repair the autopilot.
The cable was so corroded I
couldn’t even unplug, I had to cut it. I cleaned the cables, and
reconnected them. Everything went all right until the morning. I just
went outside when the wind increased. An enormous wave and a big gust
came at the same time. Then I heard a loud crack and the A7 sail was
torn in half with one quick motion. I had no other choice, I had to cut
it off and let it go. Unfortunately it took one of the halyards too, I
couldn’t save it.”
His former co-skipper Conrad Colman (Foresight Natural Energy) has
also been ‘in the wars’, knocked flat. “An electric bypass destroyed one
of the solar charge controllers and it damaged the electric cables next
to it. It stopped the electronics and thus the pilot, and I lost
control of the boat as I wasn't at the helm. By the time I got there the
boat was on its side and the gennaker in the water. It took me a lot of
time to regain control and then to try to save the sail.”
Thomas
Ruyant, the French Vendée Globe rookie in ninth place, reported that he
had been to hell and back replacing broken battens in his mainsail on
Le Souffle du Nord pour le projet Imagine and sounded desperately tired
when he spoke to Vendée Globe LIVE. And since breaking into the Indian
Ocean for the first time, Louis Burton has not had to look far for
problems on his Bureau Vallée.
“Since the Cape of Good Hope, I have had a
series of problems,” Burton reported, “There was a problem with the
autopilot. I got knocked down three times. So as a result, I am very
tired. I don’t know if it’s a problem with the compass or wind
instruments at the top of the mast. The autopilot pushed the helm over
several times during the night, but I don’t know why. With all the
equipment stacked, when the boat comes right around, it’s on the wrong
side. I have a tear in the J3 and a little one in the J2. Some diesel
got spilled inside too.”
Even Alex Thomson cannot quite believe the pace at which the race is
unfolding at the front of the fleet. The Hugo Boss skipper says he is
trying as much as possible to sail his own race and not concern himself
about periods of relative strengths and weaknesses compared to leader Le
Cléac’h. On Vendée Globe live today Thomson said: “It is unbelievable
that in five days or something like that we will be half way through the
race.
That seems incredible. It has been amazingly fast. I am pleased
about that. I am pretty tired. It has been very gusty, very windy. It is
damp inside the boat and really not great living conditions. Apart from
that I am well fed. But I am looking forwards to the next front which
will bring northerlies, the nice stable warmer air and I will be able to
rest. It is virtually impossible for me to pace myself with Armel
because on the one side I am significantly slower than him and so I am
trying not to. I am trying to sail my own game and not worry too much
about Armel. He has got different speeds to me and is likely to go
different ways and so I am trying to play my own game. I think if I try
to pace him I will probably push the boat too hard.”
Quotes
Alex Thomson (GBR) Hugo Boss:
“It has been a difficult night, very windy, not really good for going
fast because of the sea conditions. So I had to throttle back a fair
bit, to try and keep calm and concentrate on not breaking anything. It
is unbelievable that in five days or something like that we will be half
way through the race. That seems incredible. It has been amazingly
fast. On my first Vendée Globe I was only south of Africa after 30 days.
This time after thirty days I might be south of New Zealand. It is
incredible.”
Enda O'Coineen (Kilcullen Voyager Team Ireland):
“I am especially saddened to learn of the withdrawal of Kojiro from the
race and, with deep upset from a personal perspective. We were first
introduced in an Irish pub in Tokyo eight years ago and built a
friendship. We had kept in contact and our friendship deepened through
the build-up to the Vendee. Also the Japanese Team has a special Irish
Interest in that in the background it was superbly managed by Tony
O'Connor. It was through Tony's language and business skills that the
projet became possible and the team qualified. As not being a French
team or European, it was an added achievement in getting to the start
line for Kojiro. And, such is the nature of this weird and wonderful
event, encompassing every aspect of humanity, we never know what’s going
to happen next as skippers live on the edge 24 hours a day and, as
Winston Churchill famously said "If you're living on the edge you're
taking up too much space". At least there is some consolidation for
Kojiro in that it’s Summer in Capetown and they have good golf since he
is a passionate golfer.”
Didac Costa (One Planet One Ocean):
“Sunday began with a fright. The wind had come back early in the
morning and I was making a good progress again, with a good course at 10
knots of speed. I was at the nav desk and I suddenly heard a bang.
I went out quickly and saw what appeared to be a rather large plastic
structure in the wake of the boat. The remains of ropes were left
wrapped around the rudder and hydro-generator. I have checked the keel
and there is no damage; and it seems that there is nothing serious in
the hull, although it is not easy to see. These last few days have been
quite frustrating in terms of wind. I have been almost stopped with a
strong SW ground swell that gives the measure of the strength of the
storms that are a little further south. Let's see if I can start surfing
the waves soon. The tail of another front is approaching us now and the
wind will progressively shift from NW to SW. We will have to gybe at
the right moment and then position ourselves for the arrival of the
first serious front in two or three days.”
Jean Le Cam, Finistère Mer Vent: “I have
never seen such big gaps. They’re huge! We knew that it would happen
before the start, but not to that extent! From the first day, the
frontrunners got away while we were stuck in light airs doing two knots.
The richest get richer. I’m in eighth place. It’s funny. Well, not
exactly funny… I am more than 2000 miles back from the leader.”
(www.vendeeglobe.org)
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