He seems to be plagued by bad luck: shortly after the start of the last Vendée Globe in 2008, the Frenchman's mast came down from above in the Bay of Biscay, but this time he made it as far as the west coast of Portugal before fate struck again. A fishing trawler rammed the Open 60 on the port side and damaged it so badly that there was a huge hole at the front and the deck was even pushed together at the height of the port side dolphin. It's a miracle that the rig didn't come down. Pavant is now sailing to Cascais with astonishing speed. He filmed the damage and sent a farewell message to his fans.
The race is over for him.
At the time of the crash, Pavant was below deck and asleep. According to his own account, he had previously been on deck for a look round and had not been able to register any other signal in the vicinity on the radar or the AIS system. He then went below deck. A short time later, there was a crash. The trawler's mandatory AIS transmitter had not been activated.
