On the phone, the Cancalais skipper Maxime Sorel obligingly comments to The World the latest news from the fleet of the 10th edition of the Vendée Globe, which is slipping into the Atlantic off the coast of West Africa, but it no longer concerns him entirely.
On VULNERABLE – 18 m foiling monohull (Imoca category) -, Sam Goodchild, serious leader of this start of the race, 5th, has touched the wind and could quickly dethrone Jean Le Cam and his It all starts in Finistère-Armor-luxwho, on Sunday November 17 at midday, was still leading the debates ahead of Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil), the Swiss Alan Roura (Hublot) and Benjamin Ferré (Monnoyeur- Duo For A Job), .
But Maxime Sorel will not get involved in the crossovers that are coming. Friday November 15, victim of a serious ankle injury and a damaged mainsail impossible to repair alone, the navigator decided to reach a small, well-sheltered port in the northeast of the island of Madeira. .
He swapped V and B-Monbana-Mayenne, his foiling steed, for a pair of crutches. And, between tears of pain and rage in his heart, he announced his abandonment to the direction of the solo, non-stop and unassisted round-the-world sailing race, launched a week ago from Sables-d’Olonne (Vendée) .
Given the condition and the blue color of the ankle, a doctor consulted in the Portuguese archipelago made an initial diagnosis of “ partial rupture of external ligaments “. Three members of the unfortunate skipper’s team, who immediately joined him, must set sail this Sunday to bring his boat, also crippled, back to its home port of Concarneau (Finistère), while he returns to France by plane to perform, upon his arrival, imaging examinations at the office of a radiologist uncle.
“My damage was due to construction work”
“Nothing happened normallytells Maxime Sorel to Monde. Last Sunday, I got a good start but an hour later, the wind died down, and I tore my big gennaker (foresail) then cascading problems with my mainsail track ensue. Things that we don’t even understand how they could have happened…”
Balancing on his boom to try to repair the damage, three meters high in rough seas, Maxime Sorel is the victim of a brutal shock which ” violently rotates the right ankle ».
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