The team has not yet provided any further details about the circumstances of the mast breakage, but the accident happened in the early hours of the morning 260 nautical miles north-west of Cape Verde. Skipper Nicolas Troussel is uninjured and is now securing the boat. The 46-year-old will then head for Cape Verde.
Troussel has surprised everyone with his boat. The Open 60, which was only completed at the beginning of the year, practically right at the time of the lockdown, has so far proved to be very fast and was right at the front for a long time before Troussel chose a slightly different route around the storm "Theta" than the leader Alex Thomson and fell back slightly. "Corum" was built by two-time Vendée Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux and his shipyard CDK and was considered an unknown quantity in the field until the start.
Meanwhile, the drag race to the equator is in full swing. In the last few hours, the two new boats "Linked Out" by Thomas Ruyant and "Apivia" by Charlie Dalin have been pushing hard to close the gap to the leader Alex Thomson. The third and fourth-placed riders were still around 139 and 183 nautical miles behind tonight. At 9.00 a.m. today, Ruyant was still 126 miles behind and Dalin 176. Charlie Dalin had announced yesterday in the live video broadcast of the Vendée Globe that he would go the extra mile and race to the front, as he had been taking it easy on his boat in the rough conditions so far. Ruyant had made similar hints. Now they are putting their money where their mouth is.
The leading boats will all be sailing in similar trade wind conditions until at least Wednesday, so it will be interesting to see whether the chasing boats can really close the gap again or whether Alex Thomson still has an ace up his sleeve and strikes back during the course of the day. In general, the feeling at this Vendée so far has been that the skippers are still holding back a lot with their newer foils. The speed differences to the non-foilers, which are significantly higher than we have seen so far, suggest that all the skippers are still taking it easy on their boats. The race is still long, and none of the boats with foils that are now almost three times as long, which have to withstand correspondingly higher loads, have yet sailed longer than a non-stop Atlantic crossing. Understandably, nobody wants to mobilise their last reserves too early.
But you can't wait too long either. Whoever comes out of the Doldrums first and has a clear lead there has a good chance of catching the first low in the Southern Ocean before the others and putting a weather system between themselves and the chasing pack, as Will Harris explained well in his tactical analysis on www.yacht.de this morning.
Video summary of the first week of racing
The summary of the first race week in the video summary
Further back, Jérémie Beyou's "Charal" and Kojiro Shiraishi's "DMG Mori" team are fighting to ensure that their skippers can continue sailing. The Frenchman wants to announce at around 5 p.m. today whether his "Charal" can be repaired in Les Sables and whether he will return to the race or not. The Japanese skipper is struggling on his "DMG Mori Global One" with major damage to the mainsail, which is difficult to repair at sea with the materials and tools available. The head of the sail is completely torn at the height of the first batten after several patent jibes following autopilot problems. As he can no longer make it back to the starting harbour within the time limit of ten days for a repair, he would not be able to replace the sail ashore in Les Sables-d'Olonne and start again.
Jean Le Cam continues to perform sensationally with his "Yes we Cam!" He is still in second place as the best non-foiler but, as expected, has lost miles to "Hugo Boss" in perfect foil conditions; he is now 80 miles behind. The foilers are around two to three knots faster, taking around 50 miles a day off the 61-year-old. If this continues, he is likely to be caught up by "Linked Out" and "Apivia" by Tuesday evening at the latest.
Boris Herrmann sails very consistently with his "Seaexplorer", almost on a par with Sam Davies' "Initiatives Cœur" in 11th and 12th place. As there are still three non-foilers ahead of them ("Yes we Cam", "Omia Water Familiy" and "Groupe Apicil"), it can be assumed that Herrmann will soon make it back into the top 10 in the official ranking.
Louis Burton, who filmed his "Bureau Vallée" with a drone, sent a very nice film of sailing in the trade winds.
Bureau Vallee in the North Atlantic
