As the leader of the 9th Vendée Globe, Yannick Bestaven was the first to pass Cape Horn on 2 January at 14:42 German time. The "Maître Coq IV" skipper had a lead of around 160 nautical miles over his pursuer Charlie Dalin ("Apivia") at the transition from the Pacific to the Atlantic. It took Bestaven 55 days and 22 minutes to sail from the starting harbour of Les Sables-d'Olonne to the third, last and most important cape of the circumnavigators. During his Cape Horn passage, the 48-year-old from La Rochelle had to parry winds in excess of 30 knots and heavy seas. However, he was not granted a view of the famous grey rock as a reward, as Bestaven passed the legendary landmark at a distance of 85 nautical miles because this was his best, safest and fastest route option in the challenging conditions.
Yannick Bestaven has managed to pass Cape Horn for the first time in his life, and as the front runner to boot. DThe cries of joy are infectious...
Nevertheless, Yannick Bestaven had many good reasons to celebrate his long-awaited Cape Horn premiere: It marked the end of his wild Southern Ocean ride of the past few weeks. The 7000 nautical mile ascent in the Atlantic begins. The Cape Horn passage also closes an old wound, as Bestaven lost his mast in the first 24 hours of his first, painfully short Vendée Globe appearance in the 2008/09 race in a furious storm in the Bay of Biscay. Things are now looking very different for the marine engineer in the current race. He dominates the fleet after the first two thirds of the solo circumnavigation with his "Maître Coq IV", the former "Safran 2" from 2015, and initially has the best hand in the final third.
The former Mini-Transat winner and two-time Transat Jacques Vabre winner, who had never travelled further south than Brazil before this successful round the world race, has been sailing in the top three since the Kerguelen Islands. Shortly before the longitude of Tasmania, Bestaven had taken the lead. He describes the condition of his reliable VPLP-Verdier design in a similar way to Boris Herrmann's "Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco": "close to 100 per cent." Bestaven, who grew up in Arcachon on the French Atlantic coast, has recently impressed above all with his uncompromising courses close to the ice limit (AEZ) set by the race organisers. Not to be forgotten: Like Boris Herrmann, Bestaven was also involved in the rescue mission for Kevin Escoffier at the beginning of December, who had to abandon his boat after it broke apart and was rescued eleven hours later by Jean Le Cam. Accordingly, Bestaven still has a time credit of 10 hours and 15 minutes in his account, like a little joker. He wouldn't need it at the moment, but it is a nice little cushion in planning and thinking about a possible close finish.
Bestaven had already mentioned some of the reasons for his success so far before the start of the race: "I'm stubborn. That's one of my biggest faults, but also one of my qualities. And I'm pretty resilient. I have a strong spirit in difficult conditions." After his successful Cape Horn passage, Bestaven explained: "I had to believe in my options - without looking too much at what the competition was doing. I had to be stubborn, especially when I stayed close to the ice edge. But I didn't realise beforehand that you can get so deep into the human body that you can mentally and physically overcome all this stress, this cold, this wetness and this loneliness. There were magical moments and also hard ones. For example, a sun shot where I was on deck in the middle of the night wondering what the hell I was doing here."
However, Bestaven's fantastic best time in this race also shows how different the conditions have been so far compared to the eighth edition four years earlier. Bestaven and the entire fleet are now more than a week behind the record set by winner Armel Le Cléac'h. In 2009, Armel Le Cléac'h reached Cape Horn more than eight days earlier than the current leader.
In the meantime, Charlie Dalin has also passed Cape Horn in second place. The 36-year-old and his Verdier design "Apivia" passed the last major milestone before the long final Atlantic sprint on Sunday morning at 5.39 a.m. German time. In his first Cape Horn passage, he managed to do so at a distance of around seven nautical miles from the legendary rock, 14 hours and 56 minutes after the leading Yannick Bestaven. While Bestaven and Dalin have now entered the decisive section of the race, their chasers are gradually expected to arrive off Cape Horn. Around 450 nautical miles behind the leader Yannick Bestaven, third-placed Thomas Ruyant ("LinkedOut") and Damien Seguin ("Groupe Apicil"), who continues to sail stubbornly and just behind him, are heading towards Cape Horn, which they are expected to reach on Monday evening in 30 to 35 knots of wind and six metre high waves. Boris Herrmann was in eighth place on Sunday morning and should arrive at the Cape of his dreams just a little later.
Shortly before his Cape Horn passage - probably in the late evening of 4 January or in the morning of 5 January - Boris Herrmann sent this video from "my little world".
The 39-year-old skipper of the "Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco" said:
"The wind is very unstable. I'm sailing with one reef and a small gennaker. It's not easy downwind in the high waves. We accelerate strongly. And foiling. I'm looking forward to getting back into the Atlantic. In conditions I know, in more stable winds. I hope I can climb up the rankings again. But this group is so close together. It's crazy, crazy. Last night I sent a message via WhatsApp saying that we have to be careful not to have a collision out here. I have a problem with my AIS and I'm not very happy that we're so close together. I'm catching up with Louis and Isabelle again. It's going to be interesting because a ten-degree wind shift here and there can make a big difference."
