It has now become something of a ritual: on Fridays, the German reports from on board his "Seaexplorer" in a Zoom programme and answers questions from journalists about how his race is going, how he is doing, what is broken on board and how he assesses the competition. Today, a tired-looking Boris Herrmann reports that he has hardly slept. The wind is extremely gusty, sometimes 12 knots, sometimes over 20, he says, and you have to intervene again and again, otherwise the boat would simply go too fast.
"The conditions are still difficult, we can't do much with the foils. The boat is simply too fast in gusts, my foils are retracted!" This is also one of the reasons why the non-foilers and the old foilers can keep up so well, such as Jean Le Cam. "We've hardly had the conditions for the new foilers in the Indian Ocean so far. But they are yet to come!"
The German was still unable to tackle the urgently needed repairs to the damaged hydro generators and the zip on the J2. "There's no question that I can repair them, but I need a weather window with very little wind. That won't happen for another four or five days. I really miss the J2 here. It's difficult to find a compromise in order to make good progress."
The weather is now a real burden for Boris Herrmann: "I'm fed up with all the rumbling and banging, I'd like to have normal, peaceful conditions again. It's even tougher now than in the storm front because the wind is so inconsistent."
He also says that he has set up a WhatsApp group with the other participants and is in lively dialogue with them. "It brings us together. One of them wants to give up today, so I encouraged him, one has a birthday, one has a damaged oar. We also talk to Sam Davies, who is repairing her boat in Cape Town. It's all a nice change of pace!"
He is now slowly finding a rhythm. "I was still struggling a lot with the loneliness last week, but that's getting better now."
Commenting on the surprisingly close race between new and old boats, foilers and non-foilers, Herrmann says: "We had imagined things to be a little different. But that's simply because we haven't yet been able to realise the speed potential of our larger foils."
He summarised his motivation and the smaller goals he has set himself as follows: "My goal is to overtake Damien Seguin ("Groupe Apicil") and reduce the gap to Yannick Bestaven ("Maître Coq"). I sailed with him for a long time, I want to get back to him!" He doesn't rate the fact that he is currently making up miles on the leaders too highly: "They're sailing into the doldrums, we're catching up. But then they start again earlier. It's more of a rubber band effect." Herrmann is currently only 250 nautical miles behind the leaders.
Live impressions from Thomas Ruyant, which show just how hard life on board is at the moment
But what the German didn't know before the midday update: in the midday ranking, "Apivia" was very slow for the third time in a row, sailing almost eight knots slower than the pursuers. And Thomas Ruyant's "LinkedOut" has already come within around 100 miles of "Apivia"; Yannick Bestaven's "Maître Coq", which took over third place from Louis Burton ("Bureau Vallée 2") overnight, is only 128 nautical miles behind. The weather does not seem to be solely responsible for such a slow boat speed, this morning at times around 5 knots, now around 10. So the question remains as to whether Dalin has a technical problem on board that is currently slowing him down. It will be interesting to see how the whole thing continues in the next position updates at 15:00 and 18:00.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
