Vendée Globe: update 18Nov20
Catch up with all the latest from the British skippers, plus news on the rest of the fleet.
While Nicholas Troussel is motoring slowly into a lumpy sea, his Vendée Globe abandoned after his mast was broken early yesterday morning, Jérémie Beyou restarted some 2,700 nautical miles behind leader Alex Thomson who should be first across the Equator in the middle of this morning (18Nov20).
Nicholas Troussel has confirmed that he was below decks asleep when his mast crashed down in the gusty tradewinds.
”It was just before sunrise and I was asleep and went up on deck and saw the damage. My priority then was to get the mast off and away from the boat because the sea was quite choppy. Then you realise that it is all over.”
Alex Thomson expects the fleet to converge in the Doldrums
Watch Hugo Boss before the wind dropped. (18.15 17Nov20)
Pip Hare is getting out the epoxy
“All being well, tomorrow [18Nov] will be a great sailing day with very little human interaction required, which means a bow to stern boat check and some time to get messy with epoxy trying to rebuild my engine water cooling sub tank.”
Yesterday she hit her wind limits for ‘Big Bertha’, and fought her internal dialogue about what to do.
“It’s up, it’s down. It’s a terrible debate with the angels going ‘you’ve got to be careful early in the race’, and the demons going ‘take it down when it gets dark, the wind’s dropping anyway’.
“I’ve been here staring at my graph for about half an hour. You end up with these terrible internal dialogues. You have to live and die by your own decisions.”
Watch Hare vocalise her decision process (09.29 18NOv20)
Miranda Merron is being challenged
Oil reflection 
′′Yesterday and the night before was quite challenging, the boat engulfed on a sea of oil, not a laughing stock on the surface of the water, a rare thing in the middle of the ocean. It’s starting to get light and there are clouds of trade winds. ′′ (09.10 18Nov20)
Join Sam Davies breakfasting
(Posted 19.51 17Nov20)
Here’s yesterday’s round-up from race organisers:
