Wednesday at 11 a.m., Geneva’s Justine Mettraux (Teamwork-Team Snef), who is experiencing her first Vendée Globe, was still in 13th place in the ranking and had to deal with the consequences of a major problem: she lost a sail.
“This morning, at 6:15 a.m., Justine Mettraux, skipper of the IMOCA TeamWork Team Snef, informed her team of the loss of their J0. His headsail was torn, unrelated to the repair the day before, and is now unusable,” his team communicated. Who added: “The Swiss skipper was able to bring the sail, halyard and sheets on board, without any additional damage to the structure and appendages of the boat and will now have to deal with the remaining sail clearance.”
So the vast majority of the 39 sailors still in the race were sailing at more than 15 knots, their speed was only 11 knots.
She was located 32 miles from the 12th, the Frenchwoman Clarisse Crémer (L’Occitane en Provence) and had a margin of 112 miles over the 14th, the Frenchman Benjamin Dutreux (Guyot Environnement – Water Family).
The 10th edition of the Vendée Globe, this solo, unassisted and non-stop world tour, was still largely dominated by French sailors. The first six places were thus occupied by French sailors. Only the Briton Sam Goodchild (7th) managed to break into the top 9 and break the French hegemony.
The fleet was led by Charlie Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance), who was 49 miles ahead of Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable) and 54 miles ahead of Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil). Followed: Sébastien Simon (Dubreuil Group), Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa), Nicolas Lunven (Holcim-PRB) and Jérémie Beyou (Charal).
Mettraux was 550 miles from the leader and was following his route towards the Cape of Good Hope.
At the same score, the Genevan Alan Roura (Hublot) was 26th, 1543 miles from Dalin. He was neck and neck with Conrard Colman (MS Amlin, 27th).
As for Zurich’s Oliver Heer (Tut Gut), he was 35th place (at 1792 miles).
