On the 29th day of competition in the Vendée Globe around the world sailboat race, rough seas took their toll on a pair of competitors.
At 5 p.m. local time on Dec. 7, while sailing in the southern Indian Ocean in second place, solo sailor Sébastien Simon told his shore team that the starboard foil had broken on his boat.
The captain of Groupe Dubreuil was sailing between the Kerguelen Islands and the south of Australia at night, in 16-foot seas and 25-knot winds, Simon said, “the boat suddenly went to pieces,” while he was sleeping. Once awakened, he eased his sails to straighten the vessel and felt it wasn’t responding properly. “Very quickly I understood it was the foil,” he reported. “I went to check on deck and the starboard foil was broken at the elbow, the most curved part.”
Simon took at closer look at his boat the next morning and found no collateral damage to his IMOCA class boat. He is continuing the race and is chasing leader Charlie Dalin. The two took the risk of sailing straight into a storm, while the rest of the fleet took a northerly course to avoid the weather. As of Dec. 8, Simon had a 200-mile lead over the third-place boat. Even with the damage, he was averaging 16 to 18 knots in the previously mentioned conditions.
On Dec. 8, Antoine Cornic informed his Antoine Cornic team that his headsail sustained damage while sailing in a squall in heavy seas and 30-knot winds. A 70-knot gust knocked over the boat, tearing the sail in half. Cornic cut the fabric to preserve the boat and its mast, but couldn’t recover the entire sail. In the aftermath, the solo sailor and his boat were safe and he continued in the competition.
