Vendee Globe sailing race finishers closer to France

Out of 33 ships that started the Vendée Globe solo adventure of the planet race on November 8^th from the French port city of Les Sables-d’Olonne, there are still 25 in the competition. Six are expected to complete this race either on, or near, this coming Wednesday, January 27th^th.

On a map, the line of boats is like an invertebrate ‘L’, with the long arm as a straight line of racers exploding up the Atlantic Ocean, and the shortest horizontal arm giving into final rounds on a flowing eastbound line towards the west coast of France.

The final miles across the Bay of Biscay can go down in 30 nautical miles, and the current three finalists are Louis Burton (in the Bureau Vallee 2), the skipper. Frenchman Charlie Dalin (Apivia), and Boris Herrmann from Germany. (Seaexplorer – Yacht Club de Monaco).

Of these three leaders, as of today Louis Burton is – in the first place – in the most northerly position off the coast of the Azores islands, where he enjoys the potential benefit of entering narrow local passage of south wind.

This ninth edition of the race – which takes place every four years – involves boats that are gathered closer together than in any other edition. Captain Burton summarized the situation.

‘Rarely are boats so tight four days before completion. That is deceptive enough, and difficult to predict. ‘

This is race day 76; the previous 2016-2017 edition included more favorable climate conditions that allowed for faster progress; in 2017 captain Armel Le Cléac’h finished the race after 74 days, three hours and 35 minutes.

Boris Herrmann of SeaExplorer – Yacht Club de Monaco (now in third place) spoke of small but precious delights in those last race days in his 60 – foot IMOCA class boat.

‘There are big lulls, it’s very heavy. I have just passed [a container ship heading for Guadeloupe] … They came to say hello – that was cool. They turned on their monitor lights and greeted me from the bridge! It was dark black, the moon just present in the first part of the night. We currently have 12 hours of darkness each day, unlike the southern hemisphere, where you can sail all the time in light but for only a few hours. ‘

The captain is Armel Tripon on the ship L’Occitane en Provence, which is currently stationed 11^th. He talked about what he did, as well as entertainment technology.

‘I’m upwind. It really isn’t a very pleasant situation. The boat taps permanently, everything is shaking, it’s a bit violent. There are risks of breakage. It’s awful for the boat. I usually go out during the day. Every moment is painful. I have headphones, I play music, I listen to podcasts. It damages the sound a bit. I listen to everything – classical, rock, reggae, jazz. I have just finished ‘Les Misérables’ as an audio book. It was cool. ‘

For those ships about to pass (or have just passed) Cape Horn at the head of South America, it is so sweet to cross that last ‘cape’ milestone (the other two caps like Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, and Cape Leeuwin off Australia) ruined by memories of a challenge.

French captain Alexia Barrier, in the TSE-4MYPLANET, described the conditions of days before he reached Cape Horn.

‘I’ve had my fill in the last two weeks with faces of up to 50 nautical miles and swelling. For hours, a ball is in my stomach. On board … small tips gather: the hydrogenator port is torn, satellite antenna problem, leakage from the [fresh] water machine. I wouldn’t mind stopping for a week in Patagonia to fix everything! ‘

The motto of this tough race around the planet is: ‘alone, non-stop, helpless. ‘There are unexpected and non-stop challenges along the way. French captain Clarisse Crémer in the boat Banque Populaire (12^th place) recently dealt with Sargasso seaweed sticking in her rudder, while Romain Attanasio in the Pure boat – Best Western (13th place) – pushed his boat in windless weather – he poured beer into the ocean to look at Neptune, the god of the ocean, to wake a favorable wind.

For many, finishing the race is just a big prize – only 89 people have ever finished.

Japanese racer Kojiro Shiraishi, in the DMG MORI Global One boat, was forced to retire from Vendée 2016 due to a collapsed mast. In this edition he has taken videos of his sushi dishes on board, and recently shared only bliss about this event, regardless of his race situation (19^th).

“Every day at sea, I am the happiest man in the world.”