Charlie Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance) still occupies the lead of the Vendée Globe on Saturday morning, heading towards the south of New Zealand, with in his wake a new runner-up, Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa), returned to less than 200 nautical miles from the leader.
Orphaned from his starboard foil for a week, Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil), who had occupied second place since December, completes the leading trio and remains hanging on less than 10 miles from Richomme.
“It’s not the nicest thing to be overtaken like that. It’s a little unfair but it’s part of the game,” Simon philosophizes, in a video where we see Yoann Richomme overtaking him.
The three navigators are so far the only ones to have entered the Pacific after passing the south of Tasmania and moving away – at least temporarily – from the Antarctic exclusion zone (AEZ), prohibited because it is populated by icebergs. , heading towards the south of New Zealand.
Behind, the rest of the top 10 remains unchanged and clings to the leading pace, but a new “ridge”, a transition zone between two low pressure systems, could slow them down.
Outside the top 10, Justine Mettraux (Teamwork-Team Snef) maintains her eleventh position. Alan Roura (Hublot), 20th, is still a little over 40 miles from the legendary Jean Le Cam, dean of the event. Zurich’s Oliver Heer (31st, Tut Gut) is on the outskirts of the top 30.
At the very rear, the Hungarian Szabolcs Weöres (New Europe) is more than 6,500 miles from Dalin and is still sailing in the Atlantic, several hundred miles from the Cape of Good Hope, the gateway to the ocean. Indian.
