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Strangely Tight Vendée Globe Races through the Southern Ocean

More than 45 days into the ninth edition of the Vendée Globe, Yannick Bestaven on Maître CoQ IV continues to lead the race and now threatens to break away. Pre-race favorites Apivia and LinkedOut can only hold on and wait with bated breath to see if they can stay in touch with this previously improbable leader.

“I have a little more wind than forecast, and I am happy,” said LinkedOut’s Thomas Ruyant in his latest interview with Vendée Globe Live. “But the big question is: ‘Is the high pressure going to be fast enough to catch Yannick?’” Ruyant is currently in second place with rival Charlie Dalin and Apivia off to his south in third place; both skippers are entering a zone of high pressure and light winds. Just ahead of them, Yannick Bestaven on Maître CoQ IV is pushing hard to stay ahead of the high pressure and in the southerly airflow that could propel him to a decisive breakaway. The lead trio are now about halfway between New Zealand and Point Nemo, the most remote location on Earth.

Yannick Bestaven selfie
On December 20 (or was it December 21?), Yannick Bestaven became the first of the pack to pass the ‘Antimeridian’, aka the International Date Line.
© 2020 Yannick Bestaven / Vendée Globe

Behind the top three foilers, the second pack of pursuers, from fourth-place Boris Hermann to ninth-place Giancarlo Pedote, continue to stay in contention. Pedote and Prysmian Group remain just 400 miles behind the leader after 45 days of racing. At no point in Vendée Globe history has the race ever remained this close this long.

Making the race slightly more confusing but ironically even closer, an international jury has awarded redress to three of the top skippers who participated in the daring search for and rescue of PRB’s Kevin Escoffier after his boat sank south of the Cape of Good Hope. Jean Le Cam rescued Escoffier and dropped him off to the French navy a week later. Le Cam was deemed to have gone 16 hours and 15 minutes out of his way for the rescue. He’ll be awarded that amount of time, to be taken off his final finish at the end of the race. Yannick Bestaven will receive 10 hours redress, and Boris Hermann was awarded 6 hours. These times will all be deducted from the final finish times. With racing this tight, these time adjustments could likely be the difference in one or more positions, and could help reshape the podium.

Maitre CoQ !V sailing
The IMOCA 60 Maitre CoQ IV continues to lead the fleet.
© 2020 Jean-Marie Liot / Vendée Globe

The record-breaking 27 boats still in this race span about one ocean in distance, from mid-Indian Ocean to mid-Pacific. Now very far off the event’s record pace, this Vendée Globe will almost certainly be slower than the last edition and perhaps even slower than the 2012 race, despite the fact that the boats have gotten so much faster over the last one and two generations, respectively.

With a slow descent of the Atlantic and a relatively benign and slow crossing of the southern Indian Ocean and the Pacific, the attrition rate has been lower than normal. In a typical Vendée Globe, only about half of the fleet usually reaches the finish line. In this race more than 80% of the fleet is poised to reach the halfway mark, which would be a race record. Race leader Yannick Bestaven is close to 3,000 miles from Cape Horn. Look for an update in about a week, when the leaders take on the final one of the three Great Capes.

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