Thomas Siniecki, Media365: published on Monday December 16, 2024 at 2:01 p.m.
Safe and sound, Pip Hare is mentally devastated and will still have to spend many hours alone at sea.
The third abandonment of the Vendée Globe, out of the 40 competitors at the start, was unfortunately for Pip Hare who dismasted on Sunday at 10:45 p.m. French time, therefore Monday at 8:15 a.m. local time, 700 miles off the coast of Australia. It will take her about a week to reach the coast, perhaps near Adelaide, with the makeshift sail she managed to build. “I have time to think about my next destination,” the 50-year-old British sailor manages to smile, despite very misty eyes and real sadness in this first video message, published about five hours after the incident.
“I can’t express what I feel”
“I don't know what happened. The boat took off and when it came down, the mast broke in two. It's the end of our race. I'm fine physically, the boat doesn't “No other worries. It took me three hours to clean up the mess, I made a makeshift rig and we're moving along at four knots.” His boat Medallia is the one that allowed Armel Le Cléac'h to win in 2016 with the race record in 74 days, three hours and 35 minutes. In the fight to return to the top 8 before this dismasting, the Londoner recovered the possible pieces in order to design her emergency mast, in particular the bar which normally holds the mast horizontally and which has now gone vertical in order to hook the tiny rigging, resulting in drastically reduced speeds.
“I cannot yet express how I feel. I have to act pragmatically, in order to take care of myself and the boat to reach the shore. A huge thank you to everyone who worked so hard for four years, to our incredible sponsors and to all our partners, everyone who has their name on the boat and who helped, who volunteered to raise the funds… We all invested so much… I'm sorry, but it's not. It’s never the end!” She hopes to put the boat back in a sailing condition to return to Europe, and thus return to other races from 2025… With an infectious dignity to hold back her tears, which clearly has the effect of bringing out ours, she calls finally his colleagues to caution: “I'm really going to regret not going through the second half with you.”
