“Everything is random, you have to stop thinking. » At the end of a weekend trying to find the right lanes to escape from an extremely difficult “soft” zone (without wind), it is Jérémie Beyou who best sums up the dominant state of mind of the fleet of the Vendée Globe, Monday November 18, sails swollen with fatalism as the meager winds play like a ferret, passing here then there, upsetting the certainties of the best forecasters.
The nursery rhyme is extremely annoying for the sailors, forced to be patient, to exploit the slightest breeze suddenly waking up, just to move forward a little, all the same. The most philosophical take the opportunity to recharge their batteries, hang out in the sun, send beautiful photos of the calm ocean under the moon. For others, it is also the time for repairs.
Doldrums, contrasting prints
A lot of work for the Hungarian Szabolcs Weöres, forced to make a long sewing stop in the Canaries to resolve the problem of his holed mainsail, or for Fabrice Amedeo having to tinker with his damaged keel jack. In this area, however, the prize goes to Louis Burton, who had to endure three days and two nights on site after noticing serious cracks in the hull and deck of his boat. Sanding, cutting, gluing, the skipper of Valley Office is applying itself to a restoration as titanic as it is remarkable, and is taking advantage of a short day with finally more lenient winds to test the solidity of its case.
The navigators only find the trade winds momentarily – Yoann Richomme jumping at the opportunity to beat the record for the number of miles covered in 24 hours, 551.84 or 1,022 km – and to better rush into another zone of torment : the famous Doldrums. A big lottery game where no one ever really hits the bingo. The worst? Downpours and Aeolus napping. Paul Meilhat, on board Biothermtell : “Basically, it’s raining. At the beginning, we take a shower then we rinse two or three clothes, we find it nice. But after ten hours…”
The impressions are contrasting. “It was a bit scary, but in the end I only had two squalls with gusts of 30 knots. There was a lot of rain but it was progressing, it allowed us to stay positive,” retains Samantha Davies. “It’s gloomysays Eric Bellion. There is no air, it gives the impression of sailing in a large closed room with a roof and walls… of indoor boating! » Overall, however, the ships are not too stuck. “The Pot was intense, but it was short,” underlines Yannick Bestaven, the winner of the previous edition.
Embarking on the right depression
On the morning of Thursday, November 21, about a third of the fleet left the trap and fled. It's Thomas Ruyant on board Vulnerable who then leads the dance. The 43-year-old Northerner is the first to cross the equator in 11 days and 7 hours, two days behind the record set in 2016 by Briton Alex Thomson. Before the end of the day, 13 other skippers also moved to the Southern Hemisphere, marking a break with a good part of the competitors who were still fighting in the Doldrums.
For the front of the race off Brazil, the objective is to catch… the train. It is stationed north of Rio, in the form of a depression which is forming and should take those who manage to board the carriages to the Cape of Good Hope, at the tip of South Africa, cutting the Azores anticyclone when it is normally a matter of getting around it. Thomas Ruyant anticipates: “It's an entry into the South Seas which should not be too bad in the end, with fairly flat seas and a bit of steady wind, downwind. »
Ideal conditions for foiling boats designed for this type of navigation. The first third of the competitors, which took place on the evening of Friday November 22 in less than 100 nautical miles, should straddle this depression and take a good lead over the rest of the fleet which risks missing the boat. A real first selection before the Great South.
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