Vendée Globe | Dalin widens his lead over Richomme as the new year rolls around

(Paris) Still leading the Vendée Globe, Charlie Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance) took advantage of the transition to the new year to overtake Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa) on Wednesday at 7 a.m. (GMT+1).

Dalin has almost doubled his lead compared to Tuesday evening, 79 nautical miles ahead of Richomme, or a little more than 146 km (1 nautical mile: 1852 meters) in 51^e day of this race around the world.

After a dead calm, the Dalin-Richomme duo found some wind for the new year, which primarily benefited the leader.

Third, Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) was 342 minutes behind, slightly behind since the day before after having considerably reduced his delay the two previous days.

The two leading sailors have chosen to take a route further off the Brazilian coast while Simon, who has just left Rio de Janeiro behind, is much closer.

In fourth position 1400 minutes from the lead, Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable) maintains a solid cushion over the chasing pack, which from 5^ePaul Meilhat (Biotherm), at 10^eJustine Mettraux (Teamwork-Team Snef), is only separated by 150 minutes.

Faced with big fluctuations in the weather off the coast of Argentina, this group didn't really have time to wake up.

“There I have 28 knots of wind upwind, and the sea is very short,” summarized Jérémie Beyou (Charal), current 7, to the organization.^e.

“It's shaking a lot, we're looking for our way between this stormy depression which is arriving in our West and this anticyclone which is in our East. Between the two there is a northerly flow, between 25 and 30 knots, on the other hand in stormy minimums like that, it's a bit nonsense, there are big storms that I try to avoid” , he explained.

The 48-year-old skipper, 3^e of the Vendée Globe in 2017, was recently confronted with the start of a fire, which made it all the more vigilant for any electrical incident on board.

“It's complicated to race in these conditions, so that's not very fun. Being in a group adds pressure, we can't make many mistakes, these boats go fast around you! », underlined the Finistère, stuck in the ranking between Nicolas Lunven (Holcim-PRB) and Sam Goodchild (Vulnerable).

Denis van Weynbergh (D'Ieteren Group), 35^e and currently last in the fleet, entered 2025 before the majority of its competitors. The Belgian has only recently passed Tasmania.