A barely crossed Cape Horn (Chile) for the first time on Thursday, January 9, when Violette Dorange, 23, is already thinking of returning there. “I didn’t see him, I was too far away. So, I didn’t do it well, so I’ll have to come back », she tells Mondehappy to have finally entered the South Atlantic for the long final sprint, which should take her to Les Sables-d’Olonne (Vendée) in around thirty days.
While the two leaders of the 10e edition of the Vendée Globe, Charlie Dalin (Macif-Santé-Prevoyance), 1isand Yoann Richomme (Paprec-Arkéa), 2e155 miles (nearly 290 km), Saturday January 11 at 7 a.m., could arrive Tuesday January 14, shattering by nine days Armel Le Cléac’h’s record (74 days and 3 hours, in 2017), the youngest of this solo round-the-world sailing trip, non-stop and without assistance, she, this Saturday, in 29e position out of 35 competitors still in the race, without departing from its ambition to “ grab places until the end ».
However, his encounter with the last of the three legendary capes of the route – after those of Bonne-Espérance (South Africa) and Leeuwin (Australia) – was by no means an easy task. “ It took me a little over twenty-four hours to get around it in strong winds, in churning seas and with albatrosses everywhere. “, she summarizes.
-At the start of the week, « against [sa] nature » as a competitor, she had made the decision to ” to slow down » to let a deflate « strong depression which completely covered the entire area ». « My routings announced 45 established nodes [plus de 80 km/h], with gusts to 50 [plus de 90 km/h]. But in reality, there is always a little more”explains Violette Dorange. And, between the jagged and shipwrecked South American coast and the Antarctic exclusion zone intended to protect competitors from drifting ice, “there was no escape”.
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