Les Sables-d'Olonne (France) (AFP)
At the start of the 9th Vendée Globe, there were 33 skippers who often faced bad weather in a race full of suspense with several changes of leaders, a spectacular rescue and an unprecedented final sprint between five boats neck and neck.
- Departure behind closed doors -
In a sport that is lived at a distance, the start and finish of the Vendée Globe are the great moments of communion between athletes and spectators who were deprived of this exchange for the first time in the history of the race because of the crisis. health related to Covid-19.
The Sables-d'Olonne channel "is 80 meters wide (...) we can see a skipper 20 meters away so we can read his face, there is really a direct exchange, that's what is moving", a explained the mayor of the city, Yannick Moreau, to describe the usual intensity of these celebrations.
In the absence of an audience, the sailors who left with a little more than an hour's delay due to the fog, were initially accompanied by the passage of the Patrouille de France and its blue, white and red smoke in the sky.
- Two favorites ousted early -
With their brand new boats and their podium places four years earlier, Briton Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) and Frenchman Jérémie Beyou (Charal) were given big favorites with the potential to break the 74 days and 3 hours record set. by Armel Le Cléac'h in 2017, or even to complete the world tour in less than 70 days.
But less than three days after the start, Beyou struck an ofni (unidentified floating object) while the fleet faced difficult weather conditions, then he returned to Les Sables-d'Olonne to repair his boat and set off again.
No longer able to claim victory, he catches up with the last competitors one by one without reaching the top 10 at the end of the race.
After passing the equator in the lead, Alex Thomson was forced to abandon the race due to damage to his starboard rudder (part of the rudder) and structural problems.
- A spectacular rescue -
"I'm sinking": between the moment Kévin Escoffier (PRB) sends this message and the moment when the dean of the race Jean Le Cam, 61, retrieves it in a stormy sea off the Cape of Good Hope, it is past eleven o'clock.
The boat which crashes in a wave before being broken in two, the wait in the survival raft and the competitors who divert themselves to save Escoffier have moved the whole of France up to President Emmanuel Macron who congratulates the two sailors in a video call: “Chapeau!”, “we are super proud!”, “and shit for the future!”.
"I saw it as a sporting failure because I had a goal and it was not achieved, on the other hand (...) I take away human memories which will undoubtedly be much stronger than what I could have lived sportingly on the water, "Kévin Escoffier told AFP, who was then brought ashore by the Nivôse, a French Navy frigate.
- Decisive compensation -
In addition to the disappointments of Beyou, Thomson and Escoffier, successive retirements will tighten the chances of victory on a small group of boats.
Nicolas Troussel (Corum l'Epargne) dismasts off Cape Verde and retires on November 16.
Sébastien Simon (Arkéa Paprec), also equipped with a boat capable of + flying + thanks to lateral appendages called "foils", ends his solo race on December 4th, after hitting an ofni.
The next day Samantha Davies retired for the same reason but repaired her boat and left the race.
After crossing Cape Horn, Charlie Dalin (Apivia) and Yannick Bestaven (Maître Coq IV) will be regularly in the lead and as they get closer to the finish line Thomas Rettant (LinkedOut), Louis Burton (Bureau Vallée 2) then Boris Herrmann (SeaExplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco) join in the fight for victory.
The compensation times attributed to Boris Herrmann (6 hours) and Yannick Bestaven (10 hours and 15 minutes) for the rescue of Kévin Escoffier complicate the equation.
Dalin crossed the line well first but in a final twist, Herrmann hit a fishing boat a few hours from the finish and Bestaven finally won the race after deduction of the compensations.
© 2021 AFP