[Source: Vendée Globe] After the toughest 24 hours of his Vendée Globe so far, required to make a vital repair to his rudder mechanism on Hugo Boss after hitting a floating object during Sunday night, Alex Thomson (GBR) has been losing no time in getting right back into the race
This afternoon he has been closing fast on Bernard Stamm to challenge the Swiss skipper for fourth place.
Thomson passed through the Amsterdam gate at midday Tuesday making 21 kts, at almost exactly the same time as rival Stamm did some 50 miles to his east, the pair setting off on a fast SE’ly course making for the fourth gate, some 1100 miles ahead of them.
The British skipper’s team confirmed today that the repair to the rudder tie bar had taken around fifteen hours in total. Although he had already made the same type of composite repair in the Atlantic to rectify a similar problem which had afflicted the opposite rudder, this time the work was more complicated and had to be completed in much more testing weather and sea conditions. The accident has damaged one of his hydrogenerators beyond repair.
Now relying on a limited supply of diesel and the one remaining hydrogenerator, Thomson will be in very strict energy saving mode – running what his team call ‘dark mode’ – which means very reduced communication with the outside world.
“I am gutted for Alex because he has sailed a great race up until now.” Stewart Hosford, CEO of Alex Thomson Racing told Vendée Globe LIVE today, “ He has hung on tenaciously to the newer boats. We here have all been pretty proud of him, so we are all a bit disappointed. Also now for him because he likes to do the comms, he likes doing the videos, he likes speaking to his friends and family and we now have to go into what we call dark mode, so a fairly big shut down on electricity power usage on the boat. That does not mean he will not keep sailing as hard and fast as he can to finish this race.”
Alex Thomson is back in the game
Self-dentistry
While Thomson has had repairs to his boat to make, for rival Bernard Stamm it has been self-dentistry which has been the new challenge for the Brittany based Swiss racer.
Stamm broke one of his molars whilst eating and, under careful instruction, had to file and fill the tooth himself with a temporary dressing, a painful and painstaking operation.
The leaders’ pace has eased slightly compared with Monday’s mad dash, but the top duo Francois Gabart on Macif and Armel Le Cléac’h remain glued together with only 3 miles of lateral separation. Gabart only just holds the upper hand. The intensity of their duel remains as close and tight as an afternoon speed-testing off Port La Fôret, the Finisterre training centre at which all four of the top placed skippers train. And when they are out of visual contact with each other, there is AIS (the automatic ship identification system) automatically relaying speed and course heading, to give each an empirical monitor of their opponent’s progress.
“François and I have seen each other on our AIS for 24 hours now. It’s a nice way to check my speed is good enough! Our routes are quite similar, I’ve actually seen François this morning as his boat wasn’t far from mine. But you can’t stay outside too long because of the water crashing everywhere.” Le Cléac’h reported this afternoon.
Express Indian
With some 1500 miles remaining for the leaders to Cape Leeuwin, the pace for passage of the Indian Ocean remains close to the same as 2008-9, likely to be around 11.5 days on this course which is longer due to the ice gates that are set more to the north than in the last edition.
Conditions last night and today have been tough, potentially ‘boat breaking’ according to eighth placed Swiss skipper Dominique Wavre who – on his tenth circumnavigation – is not prone to exaggeration. Crossed seas, in the transition between the NW’ly winds at the leading edge of the depression and the SW’ly behind it, and gusts of over 40kts have made life unpleasant for Wavre, on Mirabaud, who is not hopeful of closing down the 150 miles he lost to Jean Le Cam and to Mike Golding over recent days.
Equally, Golding – leader of this pack in sixth – is now 703 miles behind the leader.