sail damage for Violette Dorange, Eric Bellion abandons

Hard blow for the youngest of 10^e edition of the Vendée Globe. The J3, a small headsail designed for heavy weather of around 50 m²by Violette Dorange (Become) fell into the water, said the 23-year-old skipper, Sunday January 12, while she was in the South Atlantic, north of the Falkland Islands. “The system that maintains it has brokenshe said. I first took charge of [le] recover, but I struggled because there were 35 knots [de vent, soit environ 65 km/h]. When I got it back, I put it in the hatch, but, at the same time, I broke the hinge of the sail locker hatch. »

If the young sailor managed to limit the damage, she is now waiting for the weather conditions to calm down before she can climb the mast. “It’s hard because it means that I no longer have a headsail for strong winds while I still have average winds of 35 knots with gusts of 40 knots. [74 km/h]. I’ll have to be patient. » Violette Dorange was, at 11 a.m., 28^e (5,875 miles, or 10,880 km from the first) in this quadrennial solo, non-stop and unassisted world tour.

In the lead, the leaders Charlie Dalin (Macif-Santé-Prevoyance), 1^isand Yoann Richomme (Paprec-Arkéa), 2^eThey are moving very quickly: they have covered more than 520 miles (963 km) in the last twenty-four hours. The gap between the two men stabilizes (143 miles, 265 km) and even if Yoann Richomme is faster, the scenario, barring damage, remains favorable to Charlie Dalin, expected in Les Sables-d’Olonne (Vendée) on Tuesday, between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sébastien Simon (Groupe-Dubreuil), 3^e 819 miles (1,517 km) from Charlie Dalin, should arrive during the night from Thursday to Friday.

Eric Bellion abandoned

This day also marks the sixth retirement – ​​the competitors still in the race are 34, out of 40 starters. Eric Bellion (Stand-As-One), which evolved in 29^e position, in fact announced that he was giving up. While he had rounded Cape Horn (Chile), on January 9, and began his ascent of the Atlantic, after having had to carry out, for a few days, the delicate repair of the attachment point of his stay (cable partly holding the mast) of J2 (headsail of approximately 100 m²), he announced on Saturday January 11 that he was diverting towards the Falkland Islands to take shelter from the predicted strong northwest winds, as they had not held up.

According to a press release from his team, the “weather conditions in the area” and the “archipelago configuration” did not allow the 48-year-old skipper, 9^e and first rookie of the 2016-2017 edition, to bring your boat to safety without calling on external help, prohibited by the regulations. He doesn’t have “not considered reasonable to retry this repair alone without then having the opportunity to test its effectiveness and reliability” et “repairing to leave in rough seas and sailing upwind would have meant accepting to lose the mast at any time”. Two members of his team must join him tomorrow in order to make the mast more reliable. That done, he plans to bring his boat back solo, outside the race, to Les Sables-d’Olonne.