BURTON’S CRACKS ON DECK

The most worrisome news over Saturday night comes from Louis Burton who at around 2200hrs UTC last night reported to his team and to race direction that he had heard a big ‘crack!’ sound and on further inspection found cracks on the deck of the boat (at the level of the Gennaker spreader), which he and his team feel may risk affecting the structural integrity of the boat. The skipper from Saint Malo who was third on the last Vendée Globe was making nine knots this morning, heading south and passing about 10 miles north of Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance) Burton is continuing the investigations and remains very much in the race.

“Louis gybed in the middle of the night and made a SE’ly course to be able to work on the deck and focus on repairs”, explains Fabien Delahaye from Race Direction.

Broadly speaking the fleet is still split into three. The areas of calm are moving to the east and “a door is opening to the West” according to Delahaye. The skippers to the west have picked up speed in recent hours (between 15 and 20 knots) and are benefiting from stable wind conditions compared to their counterparts to the East (less than 10 knots). “The challenge at the moment is to go South without being blocked by the calm.” Highlights Delahaye, an accomplished skipper in his own right.

And so the two VULNERABLEs are still “sandwiching the fleet.” And when he reported last night, Ruyant is not unhappy with the way things are going:

“Everything is going well on board! We had a great day, a great night. It’s nice to find some wind again after a fairly long period of calm. The day was evenly paced with quite a few wind shifts, quite a few gybes. It’s not easy to be headed in the right direction every time, it was quite tiring. In the end, being to the NNW of the fleet was not bad. It allowed us to catch the wind a little earlier, to get out of the windless zone a little faster. The game continues, it’s going to be fun!”

SWISS  ROURA ON A ROLL

Among the nine skippers who make up the “middle group”, all are pointing their bows towards the SW like Clarisse Cremer (L’Occitane en Provence) and Giancarlo Pedote (Prysmian) who gybed during the night. Alan Roura (Hublot) is part of this group. The Swiss skipper who is fourth on the rankings, in part due to being positioned close to the rhumb line course (the most direct theoretical course ed note)

“My positioning and my shift happened naturally with my sails. I had a pretty good experience in the last few hours of the race, I didn’t ask myself too many questions. My 4th place this morning, the ‘top 10’, that’s good for morale! Now, I’d like to come back towards the West and catch up with the small fleet I’m in.”

“It’s a positioning that’s not easy, you have to focus on making the boat move forward.” But the current battle, whoever wins this phase does not mean too much, Roura says, “Lots of things can happen until the doldrums.”

POWER TOOLS OUT FOR PIP

Briton Pip Hare had a busy day yesterday, “Pip Hare (GBR, Medallia: “It was very long actually and it took a lot out of me. My hydrogenerators are slightly different to everyone else’s. Most people have them hang off the back of the boat but mine are inside the boat. There are scoops which drop down to bring water into units inside the boat and yesterday one of the fittings on the deck which stop the scoops dropping all the way through the boat and out the bottom of the boat, it fell apart and so luckily I was on deck at the time and I noticed. The first thing I had to do was pull it out the deck as it had buried itself in the deck a bit, and then I had to clear it and so yesterday afternoon I spent making some carbon plates to put over the piece which was broken so I could use the hydrogenator again. And that, although it was a small-ish job, as I had to get the power tools out, I had to get carbon plate out, and then make these custom washers, I was working all day without a break. That meant I did not sleep and so there was a bit of a payback overnight. So I am feeling much better now and really, really looking forwards to gybing south at some point. I would like to go south, I really, really would!”

AND ‘SZABI’ HEADS FOR THE CANARIES

And Szabi, Szabolcs Weöres remains in good, positive spirits as he works south towards the Canary Islands where he plans to repair his mainsail. The Hungarian reported last night, “Szabi I’m fine, I’m OK, I am going towards Las Palmas, the first option was Madeira but this low pressure developed and then if I could find the shelter there it was was not well protected, so I decided to use this nice wind now to continue to the Canary Islands. As you know I had a big knock down, I have big hole in the mainsail and the A7 gennaker is on the forestay. So, big, big damage. But I hope I can repair now. Things have stabilised on the boat, I climbed up the mast once and cut off the A7 gennaker and after that I climbed the forestay and that was even more acrobatic, cutting out another piece of the A7 because I saw this low developing and I knew it would be very dangerous with a flapping sail on your J2 forestay and did not roll the J2 out yet to see if it is chafed or damaged, there might be some small chafing. I don’t know how big the damage is on the mainsail, I assume it is quite big, the size of the race sticker something like that….it’s at the second reef somewhere close to the leech…I will need a calm place to repair, stitching, glueing. I think everything is possible, my morale is very good. I am pleased I stabilised the situation and I tried to get the most out of it. You know I don’t see the competitors. Right now I have turned off the competitor file to not see where they are. I just try focus on myself, keep my race alive, keep my dream alive to finish the Vendée Globe, and then the most important thing is to repair the mainsail. Tomorrow I will see. I am planning to arrive tomorrow to Las Palmas before dark to start fixing the sail. I agree there are lots of opportunities in this race, it is just the beginning. Take care everyone!”