Vendée sailor Sébastien Simon, in second place in the Vendée Globe, suffered a major foil failure between the Kerguelen Islands and Australia, which compromises his chances of victory in this unassisted round-the-world race, his team announced to AFP on Sunday, December 8.
Woke up in the middle of the night, the skipper of Groupe Dubreuil, who was about 200 miles behind the leader Charlie Dalin, discovered that his starboard foil (one of the appendages allowing the boat to take off) was broken, his team said.
“I was sleeping when the boat suddenly started to tilt (lean sharply, editor's note). I went into the cockpit to straighten the boat (…) And I quickly perceived by the sensations that something was wrong, the boat was no longer responding in the same way”, recounted the 34-year-old sailor, in a video sent from his boat.
Without one of its two foils, the boat will not be able to compete in speed with the other latest generation Imocas at the front of the fleet. But having noticed no collateral damage, the 34-year-old sailor nevertheless plans to continue his race.
He continues the race
“I still have the other foil, which is intact. That means that on port tack (when the boat receives the wind from the left, editor's note), I will lose around 30% of speed, which is not nothing”, he detailed.
“It's very frustrating, it's a shame (…) in any case the race is not over, I'm going to go to the end”, he added, visibly moved. At 3pm on Sunday, Sébastien Simon was around 250 miles (400 km) behind the leader Charlie Dalin (Macif) and 250 ahead of the 3rd Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkea).
With Dalin, he was the only sailor to have chosen the southern option in the storm that shook the Vendée Globe fleet between Wednesday and Saturday, managing to stay on course towards the east despite the terrible conditions.
Winner of the Solitaire du Figaro in 2018
Launched for several days in pursuit of Charlie Dalin (Macif), the Vendée sailor had made a very good start to the race by taking full advantage of the qualities of his sailboat ultra-high-performance.
This Imoca launched in August 2021 won the Ocean Race (a crewed round-the-world race with stopovers) under the colours of the American team 11th Hour, before being bought by the Vendée company Groupe Dubreuil.
In this Vendée Globe, his second, Sébastien Simon notably set the record for the distance covered in 24 hours solo aboard a monohull sailboat (615.33 nautical miles) between 26 and 27 November.
Winner of the Solitaire du Figaro in 2018, Simon had already made a good start to the 2020/2021 Vendée Globe, passing the Cape of Good Hope in fourth position, before retiring after hitting an unidentified floating object.