Page 20. MAINE COASTAL NEWS February 2017 Le Cleach Wins Vendee Globe Continued from Page 19. Rich Wilson still battling heavy winds,
said, “We are still standing. A very bad night. The violence that the sea can heap on a boat is not describable. It was bad when the front was approaching, we were heading east, going across the seas, with a north wind, and thus a north to south sea train. Then when the front arrived, and the wind started to go from North to North Northwest to Northwest to West Northwest, we followed it around, keeping at right angles to it. The problem then is that we end up sailing directly into the sea that has been built up and the crashing gets much, much, much worse. I’m sitting at the chart table, watching instruments. The boat crashes off of, or gets crushed by, a breaking sea, or whatever, a big crash, and my fi nger moves off the barograph, across the keel canting control panel, and stabs the Standby button on the autopilot, which is about 8 inches away, which turns off the autopilot, so the boat then crash tacks, ev- erything in the cabin comes fl ying across the cabin, the boat lays over on the other side, 4 tons of ballast water on the wrong side, 3 tons of keel bulb on the wrong side, the mainsail and boom are held by the preventer, the storm jib is backwinded into the dagger- board, the boat lies at 50 degrees of heel, and sits there, going sideways, making a bow wave with the side of the boat. Eventually crash tacked back and continued. Utterly Exhausted. Sorted the boat, got going where we wanted to go, went into the cabin, closed the door, climbed into the sleeping bag, and left the boat to do hopefully, the right thing.” 4 January (Day 60): Colman has re-
moved the shredded foresail, but has been unable to pin the headstay in place after discovering it was missing another piece. He is now sailing slowly to the northwest. Later it was learned that Colman had succeeded in replacing the pin for the headstay. He is now powering up and making sure everything will hold together. Le Cléac’h has gained more miles on
Thomson, who is sailing slower than the leader. What we thought would be an in- credible record breaking race the slow pace up the Atlantic to the fi nish is shrinking that expected record breaking time. The leaders are 1,150 miles from the fi nish or about three
days sailing time. The weather for those further back in
the South Atlantic was better than that for the leaders. In third place, Beyou is now back 400 miles from Thomson. The group of five (Bel- lion-Boissières-Amedeo-Roura-Wilson) are now out of the low and are enjoying much nicer sailing conditions. 5 January (Day 61): The two leaders
were now in more wind and Le Cléac’h had just 400 miles to the equator. Unfortunately Thomson was losing more miles and was now back 340 miles. 6 January (Day 62): The Doldrums
are now aff ecting Le Cléac’h’s speed as he begins to slow. Thomson has gained some miles back and was sailing almost fi ve knots faster than the leader. However, the weather does not look ideal for the rest of the race for the leaders. The Doldrums are stretching north and south and the northeast trades are being infl uenced by a depression of the Azores. 7 January (Day 63): Le Cléac’h has
crossed the equator with a time of 61 days, 12 hours and 21 minutes. It has taken him 14 days, 11 hours and 49 minutes to get there from Cape Horn. This is 16 hours behind François Gabart’s time in the 2012- 13 Vendee Globe race, but he is still 4 days ahead of the record for the entire race. It was evident with the weather conditions ahead one mistake could spell disaster. Rich Wilson reported, “We got through
the night OK, close reaching across the waves and into them a little bit, with staysail and two reefs in the mainsail. Mostly 25 knots of wind, and 30 plus across the deck. The motion was tolerable except for the oc- casional huge crash, but the noise was what became intolerable. The constant howling of the wind through the rigging just reminds you, second, to second to second, that it is not hospitable outside. That is reinforced by the noise of sheets of spray, from almost every wave, hitting the cabin top. The combination puts the nerves on a razor edge, and it’s diffi cult to take a nap or get any rest. I got very tired of the wind howling through the rigging, reminding me how inhospitable it is outside. I had read after the New York to Vendée Race that Jérémie Beyou had used noise cancelling headphones to try to get
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some peace and quiet. I bought some, and tried them last night for the fi rst time. Often on the boat you are alerted to things going wrong by diff erent sounds so you don’t want your ears covered up but I just had to do something to escape the weather. I listened to the chants of Benedictine monks – it was peaceful inside the headphones and howling outside. I slept very well indeed! I’ll use them again but they’re not for every day.” 8 January (Day 64): Thomson crosses
the equator and set a new record from Cape Horn to the equator with a time of 13 days, 5 hours and 30 minutes. He broke the former record set by Gabart in the last Vendee Globe by 14 hours. His time for the race at this point was 62 days, 5 hours and 10 minutes. In third Beyou was progressing well and
was back by 300 miles as the leaders slow in light air. 9 January (Day 65): Le Cléac’h slows
to just four knots in the Doldrums and now only had a 88 mile lead over Thomson. Thomson was in better wind and going nine knots. They both are hoping to be out of the Doldrums later today. What each sailor does in the next few hours could determine who will be the winner. Rich Wilson has gained 100 miles on
the three in front of him by riding an easterly moving depression. He said, “I was lucky, as sometimes us sailors get. I was at the front of a depression while the group just ahead were stuck in a high without any wind. I’ve been able to close up to Alan Roura. My fondest hope right now is that the fog would clear so I could see where Alan is. We’re only about fi ve or six miles apart but I don’t see him on the AIS and that makes me a bit nervous. The chatter among the group down here on email is ‘let’s get to Cape Horn as fast as we can and get out of the Southern Ocean.” 10 January (Day 66): Le Cléac’h
gained a few miles on his lead, but was still frustrated with the sailing conditions. What should have been an easy sail to the fi nish as been a challenge dur to a depression. Beyou in third place crossed the equator
at 1329 UTC. 11 January (Day 67): Le Cléac’h fi nds
better wind west of the Cape Verde Islands and doubles his lead over Thomson while doing almost 17 knots. The Doldrums were shrinking and this
is really helping Beyou gain on the leaders and is now just 700 miles back of the leader. As for Rich Wilson he said, “We have
1500 nautical miles to Cape Horn. A few days ago we were on the Asia Pacifi c satel- lite, with a declining elevation of the satellite over the horizon, and we switched to the Americas satellite. We study the weather to Cape Horn. One more depression coming along in a day and a half. We hope that we can skirt its southern side, up against the Antarctic Exclusion Zone, to minimize the wind strength that we will see. The group ahead, although within a hundred miles, is still going faster than we are. Today’s more moderate conditions mean that that’s a bit slow. But within a few hours we should get more, so in my decision-making, I don’t think it’s worth the eff ort, and mileage lost, to do two more sail changes, up with the full main, and then back down again into a reef, which will surely be needed.” Bellion is the ninth racer and fi rst rookie to round Cape Horn. 12 January (Day 68): Colman rounds
Cape Horn with a time of 66 days, 16 hours and 14 minutes. Crossing the equator was Jean Pierre Dick with a time just under 67 days. Le Cléac’h has added more distance to
his lead with just about 2,000 miles to the fi nish. Both he and Thomson were going well, but their speeds should drop when
off the Canaries due to a depression there. Thomson was hoping he could overtake Le Cléac’h by using the benefi ts of a high pressure system off the coast of France. He did admit he was the favorite to win, but he was going to do all he could to beat him. 13 January (Day 69): The depression
off the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands has slowed the progress of the two leaders, but despite the light air Thomson has regained 80 miles on le Cléac’h. For either to fi nd additional winds they are going to have sail further north before they get into the souther- ly breeze. Thomson was still hoping to over take le Cléac’h, but he needed to close the gap quickly. In third place, Beyou has much better
conditions. In fourth, Jean-Pierre Dick had crossed the equator the day before and had set the record from Cape Horn with a time of 13 days, 3 hours and 59 minutes. As for Rich Wilson, he said, “We are
in the depression, with 25-30 knots of wind, and forecast to go higher into the high 30s. The challenge with this storm is how big it is, and that the waves will continue to grow larger, since the wind will last for so long. We started with 2 reefs in the mainsail and the solent. We went through the night with that, I tried to escape with the noise-cancel- ing headphones in the sleeping bag, as once we were setup there was not much to do on deck. I would get up every hour and go out and look to see how we were getting on. All was fi ne in the low 20s, but when we got higher, the boat was taking off on huge 22 knots runs, but the pilot was having increas- ing diffi culty keeping us from a big broach or a potentially catastrophic gybe. So we have made two sail changes, to the staysail from solent, and to reef 3 from reef 2. We are slower, but we are in better control. How this will aff ect our future position relative to the weather at Cape Horn, we will have to wait and see.” 14 January (Day 70): Thomson had
closed to within 113 miles on fi rst place Le Cléac’h. Both skippers were pushing the limits of their boat and body and hoped it would all work out for the best. Beyou was now just 600 miles back and Dick was 500 milesback from in. Rich Wilson added, “What an eventful
24 hours. We were in the bulls-eye of the strong winds for the depression. Solent to staysail to storm jib, and one reef to two reefs to three reefs in the mainsail. A big sea built, and it was, as usual, cold and grey. We had 35 knots of wind, and although the polars call for more sail than I had, I still felt it was correct for me. Finally, I thought it would be best if we tried to escape to the south, and so tack-gybed, which we accomplished in the big seas gratifyingly. We headed southeast and in 12 hours we would have less wind and maybe less sea. At one point, an alarm went off on the instruments – ‘no speed source’, and all the data went blank. The pilot was still steering, but I noticed that our course relative to the wind was off by about 30 degrees, which I corrected on the pilot controller. Luckily, if the pilot is steering according to a wind angle, and then loses that information, it defaults to compass. But now the controller was frozen. It was still steer- ing, but no buttons worked. BG and they think that the problem was one of timing, that some piece of the complex puzzle didn’t get a piece of information in time, and that it should be ok if tried again. Fingers crossed that we don’t have to switch again. We gybed near the Antarctic Exclusion Zone and are now heading East, trying to stay close to the centre of the low, to get less wind as this depression continues to aff ect the group. We
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