Paris (AFP)

Halfway through the Vendée Globe and at the entrance to the Pacific, Yannick Bestaven (Maître Coq IV) kept Thursday at midday a hundred miles ahead of his pursuer Thomas Rouillard, delayed by a waterway but who has now been able to leave carefully.

"The wind has dropped a bit, there are only 20 knots left, it's good for speeding up. But it's cold," says Bestaven, a 47-year-old sailor, born in Saint-Nazaire but living in in Arcachon and which continues its beautiful ride on the sister-ship of Banque Populaire, winner of the previous edition.

As the weather routing takes the lead ships along the Antarctic exclusion zone, the mercury has dropped to 3 degrees.

"I have no heating, it's the hard way! I run the engine once a day to warm up the atmosphere a bit to dry out a bit and warm my feet," he said.

To warm the soul a little, the leader of the round the world solo and non-stop race called "Cali" (Arnaud Boissières), who is sailing in 16th position, over 3000 miles.

- Cold feet -

"We were able to talk a bit between his race and mine, it's nice between friends from Arcachon to discuss. I told him that my feet were cold, I asked him if the sea was better ordered in the Pacific than in the Indian because I had suffered a lot from the boat hitting the Indian, "Bestaven explained.

Longtime friends, the two men competed in the 2001 Mini-Transat, won in Salvador de Bahia by ... Bestaven.

In the 11:00 GMT standings, the latter was 92.7 miles (148 km) ahead of Rouillard and just over a hundred over Charlie Dalin (Apivia).

Forced to a halt on Wednesday evening due to a leak in his front hold, Rouillard cautiously resumed his race and closed the gap with Bestaven.

Wednesday evening, after a nap, the Dunkirk people discovered their front hold completely filled with water and immediately eased off to dry out the boat and found the cause.

“The two front hatch latches opened with the waves. I was going over 25 knots then. The boat filled up in 30 minutes while I was asleep,” he said.

After several hours of pumping, the skipper decided to "cautiously" resume his route during the night, "under mainsail and J3, while continuing to drain the front compartments".

At the tail end of the fleet, at more than 7,000 km, the sailor-journalist Sébastien Destremau was deprived of the helm, his sailboat "Merci" thus being ungovernable.

The Toulonnais had to install a tiller on one of his rudders to control the boat and move forward at reduced speed.

© 2020 AFP