The sad news about Alex Thomson's retirement from this ninth Vendée Globe came one day before the first Advent and had already been announced the evening before: with a damaged starboard rudder, the 46-year-old from Gosport no longer sees any chance of finishing this solo round-the-world race. The technical knockout blow for Thomson came after the Briton had already been struggling with problems with his cracked longitudinal stringers in the bow section for many days last week and underwent extensive repairs at sea.
"Unfortunately, a repair is not possible. We therefore accept that this is the end of the race for us and are naturally deeply disappointed. We believe that the best of the race was still ahead of us." The rather sober Thomson statement in the team's press release records the facts and the bitter consequence of this, but does not express the frustration and boundless dejection that he must currently be feeling. After two abandoned races, a third and a second place, the Briton had started his fifth Vendée Globe with declared intentions of winning, a boat extremely trimmed for success and extremely optimistic. Many observers agreed that the chances of a first non-French victory had never been greater than in this ninth edition of the solo marathon around the world.
On Saturday afternoon, Thomson was still around 1800 nautical miles away from Cape Town, which he intends to reach under his own steam. His team expects that he will be able to do this within around seven days. Thomson is heading for Cape Town without a starboard rudder and will take appropriate precautions. His technical team will fly to Cape Town and await him there.
Boris Herrmann mourns with his friend
Boris Herrmann told YACHT online about the departure of his long-time companion and friend Alex Thomson: "It's totally sad. And very unfair. He was really well prepared and I would have really liked him to win." Now Thomson has to abandon his GBR 99 and call at the harbour that Herrmann described the day before as the "harbour of the unfortunate in the Vendée Globe" - the port of refuge for those who don't make it. A wave of support for the "boss" immediately came from fans in the social networks. Within an hour, the first Facebook entry about the cancellation of the race was commented on thousands of times. One read: "The wind gods didn't mean well with Alex Thomson from the start this time."
At the front of the fleet, which has now shrunk to 31 boats, everything remained as it was: Charlie Dalin ("Apivia") leads the race with a lead of almost 300 nautical miles ahead of Thomas Ruyant ("LinkedOut") with a broken wing and Jean Le Cam ("Yes we Cam"). After 20 days, Boris Herrmann was in eighth place in the group of the most promising pursuers. Here to go to the tracker and the intermediate results.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
