Dalin drops to third as he makes repairs
Having slowed down yesterday evening to assess the damage and make repairs to his port side foil system, Charlie Dalin and Apivia have dropped to third place. Losing over 120 miles to his two nearest rivals Thomas Ruyant and Yannick Bestaven, Dalin appears to be back in race mode and making over 14kts south eastwards towards the south Pacific Ocean.
Few details of the damage Dalin’s suffered have been reported, but it is not thought to have been caused by a collision.
Meanwhile, Ruyant, whose port foil on LinkedOut is not working, has taken over the race lead again with a small margin of around 10 miles over Bestaven’s Maître CoQ as the leading group head south eastwards towards the Antarctic Exclusion Zone.
Having climbed his mast, Bestaven is really pleased to have patched his J2 headsail leech to make his sail serviceable again and have Maître CoQ back to 100% efficiency again before heading into the Pacific.
He says: “It is good for our little group as we never stopped. We’re going to get wind as we advance and we will get more wind along the ice exclusion zone limit. We’re going to continue to build the gap on the group behind; that’s the aim. I did not know about Charlie (Dalin) but I could see he was slowing down. I’m not surprised! They are faster boats; they should have better averages than me. I suspected he had a problem, but I think Thomas (Ruyant) is doing well anyway. My foils aren’t very big, but they are strong!”
Hear from the skippers around the fleet
Miranda Merron is climbing the latitudes
Moving north, Miranda met up with Alexia Barrier (TSE – 4MyPlanet) yesterday, in a somewhat apocalyptic light (see photo) and the two women conversed over the VHF.
′′It’s been more than a day since we’ve seen a few boats to go northwest to avoid a large soft area and (for me, anyway) try to move north of the bulk of a depression in formation which promises 30+ knots. Finally, it wasn’t possible to avoid this depression, because it needed to be faster. Met Alexia yesterday afternoon – very nice to be in the middle of nowhere in the Indian Ocean.” (08.33 16Dec20)
Sam Davies is happy
On her first day sailing “out of the race” around the world, Sam Davies is just happy and sailing cautiously. (19.58 15Dec20)
Alex Thomson is back in the UK
Alex is now back in the UK with his family, where he’ll spend Christmas. Hugo Boss, meanwhile, will remain in Cape Town until the New Year.
In January, Alex and the crew plan to return to Cape Town, replace the rudder and sail the boat back to the UK. (12.56 15Dec20)
No news from Pip Hare today.
Watch yesterday’s round-up from race organisers
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