
Vendée Globe Leaders Sailing Into Their Final Week
If you’ve been following our stories on the Vendée Globe race, you’ll know the leaders are getting close to the finish in this 10th edition of the solo circumnavigation. It’s a fantastic event. After almost 60 days of racing and 22,000 miles of solo, unassisted sailing in IMOCA 60s, the two leaders, Charlie Dalin aboard Macif Sante Prevoyance and Yoann Richomme on Paprec Arkéa, are just 145 miles apart. Charlie Dalin slipped past first-place Yoann Richomme just a couple of days ago. Meanwhile, Sébastien Simon aboard his IMOCA Groupe Dubreuil is about 700 miles behind. Amazingly, he’s held onto a solid third place despite missing his starboard foil, which broke off a month ago. In fourth place, Jérémie Beyou on Charal is 2100 miles behind the leader. These top four places are all French boats.

Thirty-five out of the 40 starters are still racing. British sailor Pip Hare, who dismasted 900 miles south of Australia, sailed to safety under her own jury rig. Sam Goodchild on Vulnerable is the first non-French competitor on the leaderboard. He’s running in fifth place, almost 2200 miles behind. The first female skipper is Justine Mettraux aboard Teamwork-Team SNEF. Mettraux is in 10th place about 2300 miles behind the leaders among a large group of competitors.

If all goes well, the first boat could be finishing off the coast of France after around 65 days, taking almost 10 days off the 74-day record set by Armel Le Cléac’h in the 2016 edition. That would be a stunning achievement, especially after a slow start.
The leaders still have to navigate through the tricky horse latitudes and then hope North Atlantic winter storms are kind to them as they approach Les Sables-d’Olonne. Like any yacht race, it ain’t over till it’s over.