Black Friday: Davies and Burton Abandon
Javier Sansó heads to the Canary Islands with mainsail down
Sam Davies and Louis Burton abandons
Cléac’h hunts down Gabard
England 2 France 0
Javier Sansó reports that he has been sailing for 32 hours without his mainsail. He was approaching the Canary Islands yesterday afternoon, where he will shelter in calmer conditions while he climbs up his 100ft mast to recover the main halyard. It is a hazardous operation even with a crew and even in calmer waters – imagine climbing a hundred foot ladder balanced on a rocking horse (don’t try this at home).
“Today has been pretty entertaining preparing all the material to go up the mast tomorrow in the shelter of the Canary Islands,” Sansó, the only Spaniard in the race, said. “I just need some sheltered water without waves for a few hours and I think I’ll be back again 100%. I’ve been able to sleep a full 2 hours – a real luxury!“
Black Friday: And then they were 16
Sam Davies is safe but out of the race after dismasting on Thursday night. She has switched on her engine and is heading to Madeira, 100 miles away, at about five knots. The weather is being kinder her and she was expected arrive on Saturday morning. She will be met there by Romain Attanasio, her partner and Erwan Lemeilleur, Savéol’s boat captain, who are arriving on Friday night. Davies will soon be back with her 13-month-old son, Ruben, but must have wished it would be under different circumstances and at least 74 days later.
She was near the centre of a depression with a 35 knots of wind and treacherous cross seas and was preparing to put a third reef in the mainsail, when she heard and felt the mast go.
“It was quite difficult conditions because I had just gone through the cold front and I had a really cross sea,” Davies said. “I was getting ready to my foul weather gear on and that’s when the squall was just finishing and the wind was dropping and the boat jumped off the top of the top of a wave and that’s when I had the impact.
“I could hear the mast rubbing against the hull and down the whole side of the hull and under the boat, so I knew that it could damage the hull if I was unlucky, so the main thing was to close all the watertight bulkheads in case it did get pierced.”
Davies, who finished fourth in the last Vendée Globe, waited until the wind had eased before cutting away the mast and rigging and with them any chance of finishing her second Vendée Globe.
There were words of support for her throughout the fleet including her two fellow Britons. “I feel so sorry for Sam,” Mike Golding (Gamesa) said. “Is she ok? She was right in the worst of it at the wrong time. A great shame for her and the race.”
“Really sad news regarding Sam’s dismasting last night,” Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) said. “I’m glad that she’s safe and well, but it’s a sobering reminder of how vigilant I have to be.”
Soon after Davies abandoned, Louis Burton, the 27-year-old Parisian, announced that he had abandoned and headed to La Coruña. He was limping back to Les Sables d’Olonne stuck on a starboard tack after colliding with a fishing boat on Wednesday at 0300hrs (French time). But the damage to the port shroud of his boat, Bureau Vallée, and consequent instability of his mast, meant that his passage through the Bay of Biscay with the current conditions would have been nearly impossible – especially with the deadline of needing to re-start the race by Tuesday November 20.
Fleet News:
Armel Le Cléac’h (Banque Populaire) aka The Jackal, took the lead from theFrancois ‘the Golden Boy’ Gabard (Macif) at 2300hrs (French time) on Thursday. The lead boat are heading due south and are 400 miles away from Cape Verde. By the 1600hrs ranking, Le Cléac’h the favourite, had stretched his lead to 20 miles over Gabard and the whole lead group. Gabard, who had led since the night of the start on Saturday, successfully re-positioned west and held off Bernard Stamm (Cheminées Poujoulat), who was a further four miles behind.
Earlier England had scored two small victories, with Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) first shaking off Jérémie Beyou (Maître CoQ) and then passingVincent Riou (Riou) and Jean-Pierre Dick (Virbac-Paprec 3) to move into fourth and close on the top three.
Further east, Mike Golding (Gamesa) gave Jean Le Cam (SynerCiel) a small haircut in their continuing match and led him by 12 miles. England 2 – 0 France.
But not for long. As the 10-12 knot winds veered from North to North-east, Dick and Riou struck back and passed Thomson.
Riou, gybing east but still the furthest west, at last found more wind than the others and had the best speed of 13.8 knots amongst the lead boats. The eleven skippers at the front of the front of the fleet have been enjoying much less aggressive conditions than cross seas and squalls that battered Davies out of the race.
