The alert has been issued –
An iceberg “as big as a cargo ship” makes the Vendée Globe shiver
Several Vendée Globe sailors must avoid a block of ice around a hundred meters long. Alan Roura is not concerned.
Published today at 8:29 p.m.
The New Zealand skipper encountered the iceberg on the second day of 2025.
Conrad Colman
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Wednesday evening, an alert sounded on the radios of the 10e edition of the Vendée Globe. It’s Eric Béllion, 23e of the race, who warned his competitors and nevertheless his brothers or sisters. Sailing at 54° south in the Pacific Ocean, the French sailor came across an iceberg approximately 100 meters long, “as big as a cargo ship”. Synonymous with danger of death.
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Far behind the lead, in the peloton which is sailing towards Cape Horn, the skippers must negotiate the visit of this floating object, escaped from the prohibited ice zone (ZEA) for competitors. “The wind is not stable, it oscillates 40 degrees, it’s difficult to choose where we are going, the wind takes me directly to the iceberg,” explains Eric Béllion, warned the day before by the race direction. It’s scary, we’re not being smart. My case is 3.6mm thick, I can’t afford to type that. I slowed down, I try to get as far away from it as possible, because downwind, there are growlers which stand out.”
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These pieces of ice that break away from the iceberg are precisely what Alan Roura hit in 2016. This year, he is sufficiently advanced not to have had the same fear as Eric Béllion. “He feels the cold and so we know that the ice is not very far away, like in Titanic,” explains his wife Aurélia Roura Mouraud. The security tools put in place by the organization are effective. It’s reassuring.”
The one who takes care of the communication of several boats points out another worrying aspect. “These icebergs have nothing to do there and it is one of the consequences of global warming. In 2016, Alan had not seen snow in this part of the globe and this year yes. That, too, is unusual.”
Although he avoided the iceberg, Alan Roura experienced a problem on December 29. The Genevan broke a hook, a system which allows a sail to be hoisted, and lost his “jib top”, a small sail. He is waiting for conditions to stabilize before repairing.
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