Regatta: Vendée Globe: "Apivia" in Apollo 13 fashion

This morning, Dalin sent us videos of him cutting carbon fibre panels on deck with an angle grinder, after which we can see that he has made a sandwich laminate with a foam core. Obviously the part is finished and in place, last night and today he was already travelling at 20 knots boat speed. But he is also sailing on the starboard bow, the damage is on the port side.

Dalin also sent a long report from on board:

Repair work on the centreboard case of "Apivia"

It was a tough day on board "Apivia". When the damage happened, it was a big shock and a huge disappointment for me because I thought: "It's over." It was a hard moment to see the damage.

But my team then switched to Apollo 13 mode. They sent me a solution to repair it with on-board resources. A whole lot of carbon fibre had to be cut and then laminated with a foam core to form a sandwich. After that I had to customise the piece. It was a lot of work, the daylight was slowly fading and I was pretty much at the end of my tether. Luckily I finished an hour before sunset. I then unrolled the sail and slept all night."

This morning I inspected the repair area and everything seems to be holding. The foil is not moving very much. I'm gradually gaining confidence in the repair. The race goes on for "Apivia"! I was lucky in misfortune because the wind dropped just at the moment of the damage. I took the pressure off the boat and backed the sails to get the centreboard as far out of the water as possible. Luckily the weather was with me. So I was able to tackle the repair immediately. I hope that was the last setback. I lost a lot of time, but it's not too bad. I'm still within striking distance of my two friends! Now Thomas and I have the same foil handicaps. They are not far away, I have nothing to lose. I'm currently sailing 22, 23 knots - we're getting closer to the Pacific...

At the top, Yannick Bestaven and his "Maître Coq" briefly took the lead; at the 12 o'clock position update he was just under 14 miles ahead of Thomas Ruyant. Boris Herrmann is still sailing in the middle of the chasing pack, currently in seventh place.