“A monster”, “ten-metre waves”… A terrible storm shakes the Vendée Globe fleet

Charlie Dalin (Macif) is currently managing to outpace the storm in the southern seas. MAXPPP – Marc Demeure

Braving the depression, Charlie Dalin widens the gap on Simon Dufour at the head of the race. Other skippers preferred to head north to get around the worst of the elements. Louis Burton, his rigging damaged, had to retire.

Racing ahead of a storm off the Kerguelen Islands, Charlie Dalin increased his lead over Sébastien Simon this Thursday, December 5 at the head of the Vendée Globe while in the heart of the fleet, Louis Burton retired after further damage.

Dalin (Macif) and Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) decided on Wednesday to continue their route near the inhospitable archipelago, keeping their course to the East despite a violent depression to face. At the 7pm time of the clock on Thursday, the Norman skipper seems to have fared a little better, showing a lead of over 100 miles over Sébastien Simon and, above all, maintaining a high enough speed to escape the worst of the gale.

“It has to hold”

“It has to hold, for the moment everything is going well but it has to last another 24 hours. I have to manage to stay ahead and if that's the case, when I get caught, the wind will be a little less strong, the depression will have lost intensity”, the visibly tired Macif skipper told the organisers at midday.

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The weather phenomenon on their heels is “a monster”, confided Armel Le Cléac'h, winner of the race in 2017, on Wednesday: more than fifty knots in gusts and a sea that will gradually rise to form ten-meter waves… Their pursuers, starting with third-place finisher Yoann Richomme, have headed northeast in recent days to avoid taking the full brunt of the storm and to spare their mounts, even if it means losing a lot of ground. In the evening, they were more than 460 miles behind Charlie Dalin.

Burton heads for South Africa

Much further west, shortly after the Cape of Good Hope, Louis Burton (Bureau Vallée) announced that he would abandon the race during the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Already the victim of structural damage to his sailboat in the Atlantic – which he had ingeniously managed to repair – the Saint-Malo native discovered serious damage to his rigging during the night from Wednesday to Thursday.

As conditions are expected to get increasingly tough in the Indian Ocean, the third-place finisher in the 2020/2021 edition has decided to give up and head for Cape Town, South Africa. This is the second withdrawal from this 10th edition after that of Maxime Sorel (V and B-Monbana-Mayenne) a few days after the start on November 10.