The ability to repair at sea is absolutely fundamental to
completing the Vendée Globe solo round the world race. Michel
Desjoyeaux, the only skipper to twice win the legendary singlehanded
race, which forbids any kind of outside assistance, often speaks of the
skipper needing to be able to deal with one battle each day – one fix,
one problem – to stay competitive on the 24,500 miles course from Les
Sables d’Olonne to Les Sables d’Olonne. Of the 18 skippers still racing
on Day 59 of the race four different solo skippers are having their self
reliance and repairing skills tested, some of them in extremis.
Conrad Colman has made a temporary fix,
re-attaching his flailing forestay to the bow of his Foresight Natural
Energy using a lashing which he managed to secure despite 50kt winds and
huge seas. Some 1300 miles west of Cape Horn, Colman has been making
slow, but steady progress to the north east this Tuesday afternoon after
the most challenging period of his race yet.
The pin which secures the
primary forestay is reported to have been lost during a vicious storm
between Sunday and Monday. When the forestay broke free his headsail
quickly unfurled and the 34 year old Kiwi-American’s boat was held on
its side for several hours in huge seas and violent gusts of over 60kts.
“He currently has the sail shredding itself in the wind as a flag from
the top of the mast but the risk of dismasting has reduced. He managed
to get out to put a length of 12mm dyneema as a supplementary stay from
mast head to bowsprit and has 2 other lower forestays in place and a
triple reefed main,” his shore team reported earlier today. The
exhausted skipper told Race Direction that there came a point where he
had just closed himself inside the boat and left it to take care of him.
He has been recovering since. Colman is reported to have a replacement
pin which he will try to replace when the winds reduce sufficiently.
This is no simple task.
Eleven hundred miles west, in 13th
place, the race’s youngest skipper Alan Roura, 24, had to take
emergency action last night when he broke one of his rudders on La
Fabrique when it was struck by an object in the water. He was able to
stop and replace it with a spare relatively quickly, in spite of the
40kts winds. In 15th, due south of New Zealand, Didac Costa,
the Spanish skipper of One Planet One Ocean, is running out of sails.
He has had to drop his mainsail after tearing it. He anticipates it will
be some time before he can have conditions suitable to make the
required repair.
The
stress of negotiating the narrow entrance to the bay at Port Esperance
in the south of Tasmania, where Sébastien Destremau is making a short
pit stop, nearly proved too much. The French skipper struggled with the
pressure and admitted he found himself ‘crying like a baby’ for 15
minutes when he felt he could not pick up the required mooring under
sail – as required by the race rules. He made an initial U-turn and
headed back to sea despite his desperation to check over his rigging
before the passage of the Pacific to Cape Horn.
The manoeuvring proved
successful and Destremau has climbed his rig, discovering that he has to
make a carbon composite repair to a spreader. “The stress level to come
all this way and try to get in with no charts, no detailed charts -
there are rocks and fish farms – and it is very narrow channel – I did
not like it,” Destremau recalled today. “It was a nightmare. I even
turned around this morning and said ‘I am not going in’. I thought ‘I
can’t do this, I am going to smash this boat on the rocks. And believe
it or not, I was so tired, so desperate, so disappointed that I cried. I
was on the deck crying like a baby. I thought I am going to sail away
and just take my chances. And good luck to me in the Pacific. I cried
for a good 15 minutes. That was how tired and stressed I was. But now
the boat is tied up I am good. I am fine.”
At
the front of the Vendée Globe fleet Alex Thomson in second is 190 miles
behind leader Armel Le Cléac’h. The British skipper of Hugo Boss has
struggled at times to find the best of the light, fickle tradewinds. In
third, Jérémie Beyou has gained more than 400 miles on the leaders since
the Pacific. Now 400 miles, or about one day behind Thomson, Beyou was
making 17kts this afternoon to the leading duo’s speeds of eight to nine
knots.
Three times winner of La Solitaire du Figaro Beyou said: “I have
narrowed the gap a little. It had been a while since I was less than
1000 miles from the leaders. It was largely down to the weather. That
has cheered me up. When I’m in good weather, I can use my phone or get
data down to the computer. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 hours to get one
file. On some days I have managed to get one or two and on others none
at all. I don’t have any major worries on Maître CoQ and can use all my
sails. I managed to sleep last night and recharge my batteries, which is
good as it has been very lively since Cape Horn. It isn’t over yet, as I
have a transition to deal with in a few hours from now. I don’t know
how that is going to go. If things work out, I’ll be upwind after that
along the edge of the high. I’ll then have stronger winds to the
Equator.”
Quotes
Louis Burton (Bureau Vallée):
“If I manage to keep up my speed, I should reach Cape Horn as the wind
shifts. I’ll arrive reaching from the north and when I go by, I’ll be
close hauled for two or three hours. When the wind shifts, I’ll head
further south, but I should be very close to the Horn. I don’t want to
miss it. After that, there is the Lemaire Strait, then the Falklands to
deal with. I got a message from the Chilean authorities warning me of
the dangers down there. That makes it exciting but also stressful. I
should be able to go inside the Lemaire Strait leaving the Falklands to
starboard. I should be able to make the most of the current there. It
should be fairly quick before I get a lot of wind to deal with off the
Falklands. If things go well I shouldn’t have too much upwind sailing
before picking up the Brazilian trade winds. I should be getting into
the Doldrums on 16th or 17th.”
Armel le Cléac’h, Banque Populaire VIII:
“The trade winds are not very well established. We’re heading north on
the right tack. After tacking several times to get the right angle,
we’re making headway and should get some more wind tomorrow. For the
moment, we’re playing around with the squalls and clouds. We’re trying
to find the best route to les Sables d’Olonne, but it’s not easy. It’s
the same for everyone, as we are under the influence of the high. I have
been exercising since the start. There is the physical and mental
fatigue. We’re on the home run and we have to keep going. Manoeuvres
seem harder than at the start; but after fifty days of racing, we know
what to do. We’ll see the state of play after the Doldrums, which are
the next hurdle I hope to have a good lead to be able to tackle the
Doldrums with a clear head."
Fabrice Amedeo, Newrest-Matmut:
"It’s getting calmer. I have 25 knots of wind and I’m going to hoist
some more sail. I have just been through the toughest conditions since
the start of the Vendée Globe with 48 knots of wind. I didn’t suffer any
damage, but I had to weather the storm for several hours. It’s the
first time I have had to do that on an IMOCA. The rankings are
incidental. We’re grouped together here. It’s safer to cross the Pacific
like that. The ultimate goal is to finish the Vendée Globe.”
Nandor Fa (HUN) Spirit of Hungary:
“I had a beautiful sunrise and am sailing upwind in light conditions.
It was tough for me when the depression hit us, I was on the east side
of it and Conrad was on the west. That was tough for both of us. Maybe I
was luckier because I only had 40+kts of wind. The front passed me
quite quickly and then I had two small sails and no wind. I had six
metres of waves and it was terrible for the boat. I could hardly move at
all in the boat or in the cockpit because it was so violent. I have
some software problems and the electrical problems I cannot solve. I
lost some GPS antennae. I have one left and it is working. I am often
frightened. You are scared, tense about losing something. Sometimes you
worry about every gust, but if there is anything to be afraid of it is
major damage that would not allow me to keep going. Sometimes it feels
like it was just yesterday when we started. When you are moving well it
feels like that. But now it feels like two months away from land.
Physically I am not tired but you feel it mentally.”
(www.vendeeglobe.org)
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