[Source: Vendée Globe] At 2300hrs (French time) on Saturday, Jérémie Beyou (Maître CoQ) detected a malfunction of the hydraulic jack of his keel. He has taken advantage of the proximity of Cape Verde for shelter in order to inspect in more detail the system that allows the keel to move.
When Beyou warned his crew shortly before midnight, he was 70 miles (130 km) from the Cape Verde archipelago and making five knots. He should have found shelter among the islands by midday on Sunday.
Meanwhile Zbigniew ‘Gutek’ Gutkowski (ENERGA) has heaved to, 500 west of the Canary Islands at the back of the fleet, waiting for the right moment to climb the mast and cutaway the gennaker wrapped around his forestay.
It is part of an ongoing struggle with his autopilot that has plagued him from the start. The 39-year-old Polish skipper came to a stop last night and was waiting for the wind to drop and swell to decrease, but his mission will be more perilous than Javier Sansó’s on Friday night, who was able to divert to Tenerife and find shelter in the lee of the island.
Jérémie Beyou will have to find shelter as he’s experiencing problems with the keel of his boat
“The main thing is to get down the wrapped gennaker from the forestay,” Gutek said. “I have a sort of plan now how to do it but it’s not so easy. One way is to go up and then slide down cutting all into pieces, but these pieces could possibly hit the mast and I don’t want to lose the mast while actually being up on it. The better solution is to wait for the calm.”
“Cutting the halyard is not a solution, because all is well wrapped there. So now I am focused only on sorting out this problem, and after that I will think what next.”
Gutek said he has not felt in danger and has an exit strategy if it impossible to solve the problem.
“It puts me in no danger, as the wind is dropping. I can sail like this, but only downwind and down wave preferably. The trick is to have the gennaker ‘balloons’ hidden behind the mainsail to not risk breaking the forestay.”
“The closest (place to divert to) would be Madeira, Azores are also not so far away. But I would prefer Canaries, as there is the best infrastructure regarding transport and eventual repairs. I spent couple of months there and I know every marina, I could sail there without any map. But any decisions I will be taking after removing the sail from the forestay.”