Dalin was sailing ahead of his pursuers at around 7pm last night with a lead of 65 miles and 17 to 19 knots of speed when he heard a loud noise but apparently felt no impact. He immediately slowed the boat down; a check below deck revealed damage to the port foil. However, there was probably no water ingress. According to the latest information from his team, the lower mount of the foil box on the hull is damaged. The profile of the foil is undamaged and there was probably no collision. The team is working on a repair plan and Dalin wants to take advantage of the decreasing wind.
However, the tracker speaks for itself, Dalin was still travelling at just under 6 knots at the position update this morning at 4:00 am, while Thomas Ruyant was sailing further south at 18 knots and Yannick Bestaven north at 12 knots. The latter surprised everyone yesterday evening with an unexpected message from on board: "I've just come back from the mast. I'm drenched in sweat, but happy! I didn't tell anyone, but it's been on my mind for days. I could no longer use my J2, which really is the all-purpose sail on board and more versatile than the gennaker. I had to use my small gennaker all the time, the boat was always on the verge of losing control. It wasn't very comfortable and sometimes even dangerous."
It took around one and a half hours to repair the forestay, and the Frenchman was probably unable to use the sail for over a week due to the damage. The fact that he was obviously overpowered most of the time with the gennaker also explains his spectacular race to catch up, which now puts him in second place just 2.5 nautical miles behind Thomas Ruyant.
Now there is a very unusual trio at the front: two yachts that cannot use their port foil - the more important one in this part of the race - and a last-generation boat with the small foils. As the speeds of the last few days have shown, Thomas Ruyant without a foil could just about keep up the pace of Bestaven with an old foil that was not even half the size. Should Dalin not be able to repair his damage but continue sailing, that would make for an interesting group.
So while the cards are being reshuffled at the top, they don't have to worry about their lead at the back at the moment. The chasing pack with Boris Herrmann parked up in the light wind. They were overtaken by the high pressure yesterday evening and are travelling agonisingly slowly this morning at 4 to 9 knots boat speed. However, things didn't go badly for Herrmann. He was able to catch up with Louis Burton overnight and is now practically on a par with the seventh-placed team.
Yesterday Boris Herrmann once again reported from on board on the occasion of his Cape Leeuwin passage:
"I didn't really have time to celebrate the passage of the cape, even though it was a nice moment of course. I think I'll save the celebrations for the second half of the race. The high pressure stopped us a bit at the edge of the ice exclusion zone. My routing yesterday showed that it was holding us all up, including Damien Seguin and Jean ahead of me, and maybe there will be some position shifts. But the weather models aren't that accurate down here. So I just stay relaxed, there's nothing I can do, we can't swerve left or right, have to wait for the high pressure to pass us."
Boris Herrmann gives deep insights into his feelings during the race in the ZDF interview
Herrmann gave an interview to the ZDF television channel yesterday, providing a deep insight into his feelings during the race.
"But the separation from Yannick, who was a kind of travelling companion for me for so long, it hurts a little how many miles I lost to him. He sails excellently, shows all his skills and I really admire him for that. With 300 miles to go, the separation to the leader is more pronounced and it looks like it will stay that way for longer, at least as far as I can see in my weather models. So we'll have to wait and see if there are any opportunities for us to catch up in the second half of the Pacific."
Boris Herrmann filmed himself unhooking and trimming his "Seaexplorer"
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
