(Vendée Globe Day 59 - Leader 750 miles east of Puerto Santa Cruz, Argentina) Rested and fully energised in beautiful sunshine, climbing north up the South Atlantic, the mercury rising and sailing in a moderate breeze, Vendée Globe leader Yannick Bestaven’s strategic choices may prove better than his off quay rendition of a Jonny Hallyday classic, but with a margin of over 170 miles – and at times peaking at over 20 knots earlier today, the 48-year-old skipper of Maître Coq IV had every reason to be in full voice in a video he sent today.
The weather modelling is quite unreliable where the race leaders are – as they proved on the descent of the Atlantic some five weeks ago – but there seems to be a chance that Bestaven might be able to wriggle out of a high-pressure system and escape from his pursuers on a small depression which would slingshot him north. The next 48 hours will be key.
At the same time as Bestaven was lapping up the sunshine, enjoying the benefits of leading the fleet into escalating temperatures, 750 nautical miles behind Germany’s Boris Herrmann was wrestling with some of the toughest moments of his race on SeaExplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco. At some 150 miles from his fourth racing rounding of the Cape, Herrmann tore the leech of his mainsail and so had to sail all the way past the horn only under his J3 – small headsail, dropping to be 10th at the Cape, the passage of which, he reported later, he hardly noticed in the 40-45 knots winds.
Exhausted after the marathon repair, Herrmann reported late this afternoon, “I am happy to have got around the Horn but I hardly noticed it. I was just fully focused on repairing my mainsail. South of Cape Horn at 140 miles something like that I knew there was quite a bit of wind coming, 45-50 and I was going down through the sequence J3 and two reefs and was about to take the third reef and the leech of the sail caught the shrouds.”
He explained, “Luckily I was able to repair it. And that makes me really happy. It was complicated because it was structural, I had to dry and clean two layers up there in 45 knots of wind, it was pretty hairy on deck and I suppose it was well intentioned, but I finished today in the sunshine in the Atlantic. And now it is finally great to be in the Atlantic, sunshine, lighter winds and blue skies. And I have a mainsail up and that is just great.”
From early this morning there was an unprecedented number of boats passing Cape Horn in short order. Four solo skippers passed Cape Horn in a period of less than four hours. Between 0240hrs UTC on Monday morning when Damien Seguin (Group APICIL) rounded and 0401hrs Tuesday morning when Isabelle Joschke (MACSF) rounded in 11th, eight IMOCA skippers rounded the famous Cape Horn and passed back into the Atlantic after over one month in the Southern Oceans.
At 0016hrs UTC last night it was the first Horn rounding in the career of Maxime Sorel (V and B Mayenne), 3hrs and 58 minutes after Jean Le Cam whose seventh time it was. Italy’s Giancarlo Pedote (Prysmian Group) rounded 55 minutes later at 0112hrs to become the first non-French skipper in ninth.
At 0227hrs UTC Boris Herrmann of Germany fighting his problems made his fourth racing passage of his career rounding in tenth position on Seaexplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco, 1hr and 15 minutes after Pedote.
Then at 0401hrs Isabelle Joschke crossed Cape Horn for the first time in her ocean racing career. Racing MACSF she was just 1hr and 34 mins behind Herrmann.
Next to pass, and certain of mean, nasty Cape Horn conditions will be Clarisse Crèmer (Banque Populaire X) this evening followed by Armel Tripon (L’Occitane en Provence).
Second-placed Charlie Dalin (Apivia) took time to reflect on the two different worlds, after his first time in the Southern Ocean:
