Vendée Globe: Alan Roura, a crazy comeback followed by a magical encounter

Justine Mettraux is still in the top 10 of the Vendée Globe, led by Frenchman Charlie Dalin, as of Thursday 7:00 p.m. His Geneva friend, Alan Roura, 17th, had a few good days punctuated by a great encounter.

Justine Mettraux (TeamWork – Team Snef) is sailing Thursday evening in 10th position, 2,608 miles from the leader and is “on her way to the South Atlantic trade winds”. She is still neck and neck with six competitors. 4th place, occupied by Jérémie Beyou, is only around 100 miles ahead of her.

“I’m finally out of the semi-permanent front line in Brazil! I was chased a bit by storms last night, I tried to avoid them so the trajectory wasn’t great. (…) I can’t wait to look for the wind shift in the South-East trade winds,” explained the Genevan on Thursday evening on Instagram.

A great comeback and whales for Roura

For his part, Alan Roura (Hublot) has made a good comeback in recent days, coming back to the level of three sailors who preceded him, namely the French Jean Le Cam, Romain Attanasio and Damien Seguin. “It feels so good to be back. 400 miles of delay picked up in 3 days, I have tears in my eyes…” explained the Genevan on Wednesday, who is in 17th place, 3,969 miles from the lead.

And the icing on the cake for Roura was that on Thursday he was treated to a unique encounter with whales. “There is life in the ocean, it’s so cool,” the 31-year-old skipper rejoiced in a video.

Third Swiss sailor competing in this “Everest of the seas”, Zurich native Oliver Heer (Tut Gut.) is still 30th, 6,655 miles from first.

Dalin maintains a comfortable gap over Richomme

At the front of the race, Charles Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance) still leads the fleet, maintaining a comfortable gap with his pursuer Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa). But the latter persists in reducing the distance that separates him from the Normandy leader, which he brought back to 172.83 nautical miles on Thursday evening, a gain of more than 10 miles for this 61st day of racing.

The duo continues to calmly travel up the North Atlantic, off the African coast while approaching an anticyclonic ridge. In third place, Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) is sailing alone and is faced with a tactical dilemma faced with the evolution of the wind in the trade winds, to avoid seeing the gap widen with the leading sailboat, which is student at 775.17 min.

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