"Back home in the northern hemisphere at last. It's a great feeling," reported Boris Herrmann at 9.15 pm German time on the evening of 17 January. He had just crossed the zero degree of latitude with his "Seaexplorer - Yacht Cllub de Monaco". In the meantime, the 39-year-old first German skipper in the Vendée Globe has already reduced his deficit on leader Charlie Dalin to 27 nautical miles. Herrmann was particularly surprised by the still fast-sailing Louis Burton, who had even taken the lead on "Bureau Vallée 2" with smaller second-generation foils and was the first to cross the equator.
Burton's boat is the former "Banque Populaire VIII", on which Armel Le Cléac'h won the last edition of the Vendée Globe. The Verdier VPLP design was launched in the summer of 2015 - just like Boris Herrmann's "Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco" (ex-"Edmond de Rothschild"), whose foils were to outperform Burton's in the right conditions. Herrmann said: "It's strange that Louis is so fast almost all the time. He has a similar boat to Giancarlo Pedote or Yannick Bestaven. We'll see how it goes in the north-east trade winds. At the moment we're sailing almost downwind, so the foils play a smaller role in the boat speed at the moment."
They should play a greater role in the trade winds, which should directly follow the passage of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITC), also known as the Doldrums. "I think we'll reach the north-east trade winds quickly. Then we'll pass through the Azores High. And then I'll be back in our climate zone. In about three or four days," said Herrmann on Sunday night.
The last interview with Boris Herrmann from the 68th day at sea with Vendée Globe reporter and presenter Andi Robertson
The 70th day at sea came to an end for the Vendée Globe participants on Sunday morning. Yannick Bestaven (5th) on "Maître Coq IV" and Damien Seguin (6th) on "Groupe Apicil" swapped places in the leading group. This corresponds to the performance predictions of their boats with smaller foils (Burton) and no foils at all (Seguin). Damien Seguin summarised the challenging conditions during the night as follows: "I'm under a storm cloud, but in the doldrums." Behind the duo, "King" Jean Le Cam ("Yes We Cam!") has positioned himself in eighth place in the wake of Giancarlo Pedote ("Prysmanian Group"). Benjamin Dutreux ("Omia - Water Familiy") also remained close to the leading group in ninth place, 223 nautical miles behind Dalin.
Jérémie Beyou has once again made up a lot of ground on "Charal". The former top favourite, who started the race nine days late, is now in 14th place, only around 600 nautical miles behind Romain Attanasio ("Pure - Best Western Hotels and Resorts") on Sunday morning. A few days ago, there were still well over 1000 nautical miles separating the hunter and the partner of the retired Sam Davies. As the best woman in the race, Clarisse Crémer is defending her twelfth place, 1246 nautical miles behind the leading "Apivia", following the retirement of Davies and the withdrawal of Isabelle Joschke ("MACSF") at the weekend.
THE VENDÉE GLOBE ON TV
If you want to follow the Vendée Globe on German television, you have two options this Sunday: ZDF Sportreportage will be reporting on the solo circumnavigation with an interview with Boris Herrmann from 5.00 pm. And the NDR Sportclub will also be showing the German skipper and pictures of the ocean marathon from 10.50 pm. And here you can find the tracker and the interim results.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
