Since December 2, we had gotten a little used to it, so much so that our half-awake fingers wrote it almost with authority. In the lead, for two weeks, it had been Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance), period. Certainly for a time, Le Havre was worried by Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil), but it was to better let him go without a single remorse at the height of the southern depression. But on the third, it was wide, up to more than 500 miles ahead, enough to see it coming… But in fact, we saw it coming! Or rather come back.
Because with each score, Yoann Richomme (PAPREC-ARKÉA), worked to lower this count at the same time as he accelerated his average speed. As the days went by, what was indisputably a king size mattress in advance became a meager deflated camping mat, which hardly masked the painful reliefs of the ground. It’s quite simple, the soundtrack of the last few days seemed straight from “Jaws”… Until 3 a.m. UT on Tuesday, December 17, when the shark ended up diving on its prey in the middle of the Pacific! The reshuffle was express, and undeniable: the new leader of the Vendée Globe is now a “newbie”, who, although he has certainly not repeated, still seems to have revised himself very well!
Only 36 sailors left in the race
So much for the first nocturnal thunderclap, even if two other much more painful explosions reached us during the night. The official abandonment of Pip Hare (Medallia), victim of a dismasting and who reaches Melbourne under makeshift rigging, as well as that of Szabölcs Weores (New Europe), approaching Cape Town after her rigging damage. For these two, only time will be able to heal the violent blow, even if their pain is softened a little by the thousands of words of support sent by this battalion of strangers that we form, and who quietly follow their adventures and shares their immense disappointment.
There are now only 36 sailors left in the race, and if there is one who is happy to be part of it, it is Antoine Cornic (Human Immobilier, 33rd). Because the Rais feared that he too would see his dream end a little too soon, with the torment of the main sail rail being torn off, forcing him to undertake an almost impossible repair mission. But he did it, even crossing the Indian Ocean from the South to the North to reach the Island of Saint-Paul, in the shelter of which he successfully carried out his incredible project. A few hundred meters from the lichen-capped basalt cliffs, he climbed the mast to attach a new rail cut and fixed with the means at hand…
Once back on track, he told us in the night, his voice marked by his ordeal:
