In 24 hours, Richomme gained almost 50 nautical miles from Dalin, who had been leading again since Thursday after being in the lead for 15 consecutive days in December. The gap between the two men widened further overnight. Sunday morning, at 7 a.m., it was 38 miles.
With their compatriot Sébastien Simon, who came close to the Antarctic exclusion zone and lost nearly 100 miles in 24 hours on the leader, the French skippers are the only three to have passed Point Némo, the most isolated place on the globe and far from the emerged lands. They are now getting closer to Cape Horn, which they should cross at Christmas.
“We are so fast and we have caught up! We are a little more than three days ahead of Armel Le Cléac'h's record (editor's note: 74 days 3 hours and 35 minutes in 2017). We're going to go to Cape Town at Christmas, it's great!”, rejoiced Yoann Richomme to the organization.
“We are expecting a slight slowdown in the Atlantic, there is an anticyclone forming which will bother us a little,” warned the leader. The essential issue is to know whether we pass close to Cape Horn or whether we pass offshore, level with the ice zone. The advantage is that we will arrive on an edge, so we can choose quite late where we want to go.
On the Swiss side, Geneva's Justine Mettraux is in 11th place, while Alan Roura is 20th and Oliver Heer 31.
