Vendée Globe: Broken rudder on "Hugo Boss", Gitana cancels record attempt

Charles Caudrelier, Franck Cammas and their crew had only been underway on their 32-metre projectile "Maxi Edmond de Rothschild" for a good two and a half days when breakage on board forced them to turn back on Friday evening. A team statement issued by the French Gitana racing team late in the evening said: "After three days at sea as part of their record attempt around the world, Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier, in agreement with Cyril Dardashti, director of the Five Arrows team, have decided to interrupt the record run and return to their home port. This announcement comes after damage caused yesterday in a collision with a 'UFO' (ed.: unknown drifting object), which will not allow the crew to reach one hundred per cent of their potential."

The sailors of the Gitana team are currently north of Cape Verde, around 1900 nautical miles from Lorient, where "Gitana 17" is now heading again. At the same time, the director explained that the unpromising weather window also played a role in the decision. The logical consequence in his words: "If we turn around today, we can immediately return to our technical base camp and carry out repairs in order to quickly put ourselves back into standby mode and set off again this winter to conquer the Jules Verne Trophy." Interesting fact: The Jules Verne record holders on "Idec" also decided to turn back and make a new attempt four years ago in the Doldrums. This did not prevent them from setting off again two and a half weeks later and securing a new record for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by a crew under sail on 26 January 2017 with 40 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds sailed, which is now being chased again.

The second piece of bad news came late on Friday evening from an already long-suffering skipper: "Hugo Boss" skipper Alex Thomson, who had started the race as co-favourite and had been a brilliant leader for many days, had to report that his starboard rudder had broken. After the cracked longitudinal stringers of the bow section, which were repaired at sea, had already set him back considerably, Thomson dropped further down the rankings that same evening - to twelfth place by midnight. The 46-year-old Briton from Gosport had already informed his team at 7 p.m. about the damage that had occurred on day 19 at sea. The team instructed Thomson to raise the rudder immediately. The team statement said that Thomson had control of the yacht with the remaining rudder, was safe and not in danger. The team is working to analyse the damage and has announced a further statement for Saturday.

At the head of the Vendée Globe field, Charlie Dalin had extended his lead over Thomas Ruyant to 330 nautical miles in the evening. Boris Herrmann defended sixth place. Here to go to the tracker and the intermediate results.