Paris (AFP)
Thomas Coville (Sodebo Ultim 3) will make a technical stop in Cape Town, which he should reach Thursday night, to repair his new boat, damaged after hitting an OFNI (unidentified floating object) on the 12th day of Brest Atlantiques.
The 32m long maxi-trimaran, which was sailing from Rio (Brazil) to South Africa, was damaged in the starboard rudder, which "began to damage the hull that supported it," said Monday. his team down.
Thomas Coville and his co-skipper Jean-Luc Nélias are expected to join Cape Town (South Africa) Thursday night where a technical team will be waiting for them.
"It's been five days since we've been in a difficult sea, and we had a very big shock with something very heavy that hit the starboard rudder," said Coville.
"There is bitterness, this is the first race of Sodebo Ultim 3 and it comes at the worst time, we are in a hostile place, the sea is hard, the slip to Cape Town was at the end of the road and we was happy with Jean-Luc (Nélias) to accelerate and show the capabilities of the boat, we did not want to break, "continued the sailor.
Coville and Nélias are third in the standings of this race for four, reserved for maxi-multihulls capable of flying.
This boat is the 3rd in the fleet to suffer damage. Thursday, the one barred by Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier (Maxi Edmond de Rothschild) made a stop in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil) for a central drift problem, and that of François Gabart and Gwnénolé Gahinet (Trimaran Macif) stopped in Rio to replace the saffron of the central hull.
Starting on November 5th, the race is a 14,000 nautical mile long loop (around 26,000km) via Rio and Cape Town. The winner is expected in Brest around 6-7 December.
© 2019 AFP