Miranda Merron due to finish Vendée Globe today
Miranda Merron is due to finish the Vendée Globe in 22nd place today, the pinnacle of a 25 year sailing career which has included most of the world’s major challenges. Her current ETA is between 18.00 and 22.00hrs and when she finishes she’ll become only the 5th English person and 9th woman to finish a Vendée Globe.
′′ I’m terrified and stressed about experiencing the same misadventure as Boris (Herrmann) who hit a fishing boat. They are all around me. I hope they are on radar watch. I am anyway. I’m just starting to think about the arrival,” Merron says.
Cambridge University educated Merron, who lives in Normandy, France turned her back on a career in advertising and marketing to pursued her sailing ambitions. Subsequently sailing everything from the crewed Volvo Ocean Race and round the world Trophée Jules Verne speed record challenges to more recently enjoying success in the popular Class 40 fleet, her career best is being 6th place in the 2014 Route du Rhum.
Before the start Merron spoke of her simple ambitions: “It would be huge, huge, to finish. It’s a very long way around the world – it really is. Everyone talks about the Vendée Globe as if it’s a racecourse in the Bay of Quiberon. It’s not. It’s really a very long way and it goes to places where mankind simply shouldn’t go.”
When she crosses the line, Merron’s elapsed time will be around 101 days and a matter of hours, which places her somewhere between the 90 days her boat took when sailed by Dominique Wavre and some six days faster than American Rich Wilson when he completed his second Vendée Globe in 107 days in the same boat in 2016-17.
Listen as she checked in with organisers yesterday:
