Braving the depression, Charlie Dalin widens the gap on Simon Dufour at the head of the race. Other skippers preferred to head north to get around the worst of the elements. Louis Burton, rigging damaged, had to abandon.
Racing ahead of a storm off the Kerguelen Islands, Charlie Dalin increased his lead over Sébastien Simon this Thursday, December 5 at the head of the Vendée Globe while at the heart of the fleet, Louis Burton retired after further damage.
Dalin (Macif) like Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) decided on Wednesday to continue their route near the inhospitable archipelago, keeping their course to the East despite a violent depression to face. At the 7 p.m. check-in on Thursday, the Norman skipper seems to have fared a little better, displaying a lead of more than 100 miles over Sébastien Simon and, above all, keeping a sufficiently high speed to escape the brunt of the gale.
“It has to hold”
“It has to hold, for the moment everything is fine but it has to last another 24 hours. I have to manage to stay in front and if that's the case, when I'm going to be caught, the wind will be a little less strong, the depression will have lost intensity”skipper Macif told the organizers at midday, visibly tired.
The weather phenomenon on their heels is “a monster”, said Armel Le Cléac'h, winner of the race in 2017, on Wednesday: more than fifty knots in gusts and a sea which will gradually rise to form waves of ten meters… Their pursuers, starting with the third Yoann Richomme, have headed north-east in recent days to avoid taking the full force of the storm and to spare their horses, even if it means losing a lot of ground. By evening they were more than 460 miles behind Charlie Dalin.
Burton heads to South Africa
Much further west, shortly after the Cape of Good Hope, Louis Burton (Bureau Vallée) announced abandonment during the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Already the victim of structural damage to his sailboat in the Atlantic – which he had ingeniously managed to repair – the Malouin discovered serious damage to his rigging during the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
As conditions look to be getting tougher and tougher in the Indian Ocean, the third in the 2020/2021 edition has decided to give up and head to Cape Town, South Africa. This is the second abandonment of this 10th edition after that of Maxime Sorel (V and B-Monbana-Mayenne) a few days after the start on November 10.
