Charlie Dalin leads the Cape of Good Hope

The Le Havre skipper, who has been leading the race for a week, was the first to reach this essential passage of the race, Friday, to enter the formidable South Seas.

He will be the first to discover the South Seas during this edition. Navigator Charlie Dalin (Macif), leader of the 10th Vendée Globe since the morning of November 22, passed the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, in first position on Friday November 29.

The Norman reached the latitude of the first of the three reference capes of the course, with Cape Leeuwin (Australia) and Cape Horn (Chile), at 4:45 p.m. (French time), after 19 days three hours and 43 minutes of racing, according to the organizers. It took him seven days and 18 hours to reach it from Ecuador.

At the last check-in, at 3 p.m., he had a narrow margin over his runner-up, Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable), with only 16 nautical miles of difference. Behind, Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa) and Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil), respectively 35 and 37 nautical miles from the leader, make up this group of four which has separated from the rest of the fleet.

Behind them, the gap between the different competitors is widening: the 5th, Nicolas Lunven (Holcim-PRB) is 164 miles away, while the defending champion, Yannick Bestaven (Maître Coq) is now 327 miles away.