The Vendée Globe: heartbreak in the fifties

The Furious Fifties

The leading pack is now half-way around the world. The race now is through the Pacific, around Cape Horn, then back up the Atlantic.

It’s a big ocean to sail on matchstick boats. There are only eighteen left from the thirty that started. I suspect we’ll lose a couple more in the Pacific.

There is more to be experienced in the Vendée Globe than waves, sea and sky. There’s a constant fight with the physical elements, but the heart and mind become the principle combatants in this the most solitary of battles. Confidence ebbs and flows with the waves. The heart gets heavy and despondent, the head overrun with the lengthening job list. Where’s the time for sleep, where’s the time for even racing? How in the hell can this possibly work?

Rarely do we see such a helter-skelter of physical and emotional hardship as we do in a race like the Vendée:  Passion. Agony. The deep satisfaction derived from impeccable seamanship. The respect for and breathtaking awe of such terrifying seas. The excitement of surfing such a brittle piece of kit at thirty knots. The shattered heartbreak of a boat broken, busted, and fucked beyond repair.
And those still with us are still only half-way around.

They are well into the southern latitudes now – well into the fifties. “Below forty degrees, there is no law,” it is said. “Below 50 degrees, there is no God.”

Among the first to retire in this latest period of attrition was Unai Bazurko (Pakea Bizkaia) with a broken rudder. The Open 60’s have two rudders to obtain the most effective steering, but as Unai heads home to Spain, he will have but one, forcing him to stay on a single tack for most of the journey.

Loick Peyron (Gitana Eighty) was in third place when he was dismasted on December 10th.  Good timing, too: he’d just climbed his mast the previous day to fix a halyard problem. Loick had previously been in the lead longer than any other skipper. He’s also the only skipper to have raced in the first Vendee back in 1989. He has managed to construct a jury rig and is now gamely making his way towards Australia.

At this point the boats are starting to seriously surf at 30+ knots of boat speed, often with only the aft quarter of the boat still in the water. This involves careful placement of ballast (stacking and water tanks) as well as full trust in one’s autopilot. Autopilot repair is a frequent maintenance issue for the solo skippers; most carry several for redundancy. Without an autopilot the skipper would always be tired and wet and never be able to race at the level required.

By the middle of December, Mike Golding (Ecover) was up to fourth, and Mich Desj (Foncia) all the way up to third – after having been seven hundred miles behind due to his early return to Les Sables. What a sailor! Mich is so nonchalant about it as well – doesn’t feel he’s pushing particularly hard, but he must be.

Icebergs are now being spotted by some of the skippers, from boat-size to four hundred metres in length and as high as a mast. Wildlife is causing problems too, as Safran hits a whale but somehow escapes damage.

.

Sam enjoying herself in the South

Sam Davies on Roxy seems to be really enjoying her race. Huge surfing; sometimes co-operative seas; the right attitude. She of all the skippers seems the most willing (or able) to express the magic and beauty of sailing such a boat in such an ocean.
Her McGyver side has also been busy – she’s been doing what sounds like some extensive rewiring, what with bypassing solenoids in the keel trunk.
Last week Sam hit her elbow so hard that she passed out with the pain. Thankfully she now seems to be ok.
Her quote about icebergs in my last post was eerie and frightening and beautiful…

Cheminées Poujoulat beached

The two Swiss skippers suffered badly in the Indian ocean. The keel head on Dominique Wavre’s Temenos II broke, leaving the keel swinging out of control under the boat. He diverted to the Kerguelen islands to try and effect a repair.
His compatriot Bernard Stamm (Cheminées Poujoulat) also had issues, discovering his rudder bearings were crushed by the excessive wave forces. Wavre, already anchored in the Kerguelens, tried to guide Bernard into the tricky bay so he could also attempt repairs, but Stamm ended up running aground after getting caught in a patch of weeds. His boat was badly damaged, but they eventually got her re-floated and she is now loaded aboard a supply vessel, bound for Reunion Island.
Meanwhile, Wavre continues on to Australia after making a makeshift repair to the keel head.

Golding dismasted

On December 16th, Mike Golding managed to gain first place. He was sailing quickly and seemed to be managing the boat very well, but then… CRASH. Tragedy. The mast came down. Again. This is Mike’s third dismasting in four consecutive round-the-world races. Ecover was very powered up at the time, though apparently in the wrong configuration. He was just heading out on deck to deal with an unexpected squall when it all came down. It’s just heartbreaking. I thought Mike had a chance at first place this time around.

That’s three injured boats now headed for Perth.

Iceberg!

Vincent Riou (PRB), always up with the leading pack and a favourite for this Vendee, had to slow down for a while due to an injured foot. Last week he hit a glancing blow to an iceberg but somehow avoided injury or damage. The Vendee safety team has enforced a series of ice gates that forces the fleet out of the known danger zones, but this far South, there is still no avoiding the odd growler or iceberg. What an utterly frightening and humbling experience that must be!
Vincent’s foot is now on the mend and he thinks he can catch the rest of the fleet in the Pacific.

Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec Virbac) – a front runner for most of the race – experienced rudder damage after hitting a UFO (Unidentified Floating Object). He then headed North into quieter seas to effect a complicated repair. Although not fully satisfied with it, Riou is now back on track after having lost 600 miles. I have a feeling he’ll find a way to keep that rudder working and make his way back up to the front.

Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty (Groupe Maisoneuve) finally decided to abandon the race after suffering from a series of equipment problems. These included autopilot failures, a ripped genoa, and a damaged mainsail halyard. He was one of the original boats to return to Les Sables for repairs. He must be gutted.

And of course there’s Yann Elies, who suffered for two days with a broken leg, waiting for rescue. He’s now safe and sound in a hospital in Fremantle.

Mich Desj in the lead

The comeback kid continues to astound: after a seven hundred mile deficit Mich Desj (Foncia) has been in first place since Golding’s dismasting. He’s still going strong and seemingly not bothered by the pace. This is typical French mastery in action.

So – eighteen left, and more serious weather about to hit the entire fleet. Let’s hope the excitement continues without any more injuries. It’s a tough race, on a tough ocean, but these are tough skippers. God speed to all of them.

The Vendee Globe: in their own words

On the work it takes to keep an Open 60 sailing:

From Steve White, (Toe in the Water):
“I signed off last time about to do a sail change in a building breeze. I had to roll up and take down the Code 5 in what was by the time I got on deck about 35 knots of wind, which is over the limit for an old sail! This is a perfectly normal procedure, I started rolling the thing up but it got jammed half rolled up and half unrolled! There it was, flogging itself silly at the front of the boat. I went up the front to try and free it up, but the furling drum is right at the end of the bowsprit – I was not going out there I can assure you – there was a big sea and we were surfing at nearly twenty knots sometimes! I taped my big kitchen knife to the deckbrush handle and went up to deal with the problem, which was that the cover of the furling line had wrinkled up like Nora Batty’s stockings (a character in a British sitcom-editor) inside the drum, got caught on a cunningly placed spike and wedged itself up very very tightly! Whilst hacking away I took my eye off the ball missed a big wave which we surfed down, and got hosed down the deck, knife in hand, as we buried the bow in the wave in front at high speed – everything went dark, there was a whooshing noise in my ears as they filled up, and I held my breath as water went down my neck right down to my boots, up my nose, up my arms, everywhere. I took some sizeable pieces out of my fingers as I tried to grab stanchions and guardwires on the way past – the force of the water was incredible and I still have the bruises to testify! When I came to a stop at the mast I had managed to keep hold of the knife luckily! I had several goes at cutting away at the drum, rolling and unrolling the sail; I cut forty five metres of cover of the rest of the line with a pair of scissors on my hands an knees, and still it was up there, half in, half out and flogging like nobody’s business. After nearly three hours I decided it had to be dropped on deck as it was whilst I still had a mast! I sailed as far downwind as I dared without gybing, and went for it – first time I aborted and winched it up again before it went in the water, then second time I had it on an “inboard roll” of the boat – it was there on deck, coming down, coming down, then,outboard roll – whoosh, over the side, in the water. The boat stopped short and rounded up into the wind with a parachute handbrake over the side. There followed another two hours of struggling as I tried to get the thing back onboard, but things were going badly wrong – bent stanchions, then the first rip, then around the keel – the stuff of nightmares. I finished up dragging the thing off the bowsprit after trying to save the boltrope for my poor old broken gennaker, but I couldn’t get the thing out of the middle of the partially rolled sail. In the end I had to let the thing go before I had to get in the water and get it off the keel. I watched it sink. A twenty thousand pound sail lost because of a hundred pound piece of string with a loose cover. All I had left was the swivel and two thimbles and a ten inch piece of the head………I don’t mind admitting that nearly killed me, I was fairly well beaten up and bruised, and soaked to the skin, and rapidly becoming cold. It was 1400 when I went on deck, and 1915 when I came back down.”

On being reasonable:

From Dominique Wavre (Temenos II):
“Forcing your way through these types of seas isn’t reasonable. You have to try and weave your way through gently when the sea state is poor. As soon as the boat’s making more than 20 knots the rudders scream creating a fairly stressful, sharp noise. I tune the I-pod into my anti-noise earphones and that tones down the noise well and it becomes more bearable.”

On icebergs:

From Sam Davies (Roxy) :
“I just passed an iceberg less than 0.5nm on my Starboard side. Size C2 – around 100m I think, big enough to show up on the radar easily. SO beautiful, intense blue at the base, gleaming white top, waves crashing off the sides, SO dangerous. I hope it’s the only one.”

On the balance between speed and safety:

From Mike Golding (Ecover):
“All of us are playing the knife edge as to what we can physically cope with and what the boat can physically cope with. The reality is, if we push on too hard there’s a risk of breakage and we certainly don’t want to be turning left too soon.”

The Indian Ocean awakens the warrior in Yann  (this was a few days before his injury):

From Yann Elies (Generali):
The adventure has turned into a hand to hand fight over the past few days. The Indian, the Apache, the Mohican is a brave warrior. And we’re the poor cowboys, who under-estimated the wild natural instincts of this ocean. We racers with our brand new silver dream machines, are no longer grouped together, but have spread out. The battlefield that appeared in the naked light of day revealed damaged multihulls and downhearted sailors.  This description may appear exaggerated, but talking it over with people around here and looking at my own condition and my boat, that’s how it feels this morning.  The Indian Ocean is in the process of granting or refusing permission and the toll is expensive.  Waking up this morning was like coming out of a nightmare. I’m stunned, not to say reeling from the violence.  The Indian, which was sleeping in me, has awoken.  I’m fed up simply putting up with it.  As I write this letter, as I try to find the right words, I can feel the rebel appearing in me, rather like an adolescent facing his father.  Now I’m going to fight head held high, intent on gaining revenge for you, my blood brother, for your gang in the Abers (in Brittany), my friend Bernard. The Indian deserves a lot of respect  and you need to remain humble when crossing it.  But I have even more respect for you and your family. The fight goes on.  For not much longer now, but I’m holding out.”

Some of these quotes are eerily prescient, as we shall see in my next post.

The Vendée Globe: Yann’s rescue

This has been a rather eventful week in the Vendée Globe, to say the least.

The biggest story – eclipsing other big news which I’ll get to soon – was Yann Elies’s injury and subsequent rescue.

Generali drifting under reduced sail with injured Yann below

Yann was on deck making a sail change when Generali slammed into a big wave. This is by no means an unusual event in this part of the ocean; it was just bad luck that he was working up at the bow when it happened. He was thrown to the deck, breaking his femur and probably several ribs.
He somehow managed to crawl back into the cockpit and then below-decks to radio for help.

For the next forty-eight hours he waited on his bunk at the nav station, in too much pain even to move across the cabin to open his medical kit (which contained morphine).

The two closest boats were Marc Guillemot’s Safran and Sam Davies’ Roxy, which were both asked to divert from their current course to Generali’s location. They wouldn’t be able to do much once they got there: the sea is very rarely flat enough to allow two yachts to tie up together. Their presence there would be more for emotional and psychological support.

Generali as seen from Marc Guillemot’s Safran

Marc Guillemot arrived within twenty-four hours and was able to stay close by and chat with Yann as they waited for rescue from the Australian navy. Marc put together some packages containing water and morphine and tried to toss them though Generali’s hatch, but the seas were too difficult.

Eventually, Guillemot was able to talk Yann through each movement across the cabin to get at his medical kit. He finally got some painkillers into him and was able to sleep for a while.

Forty-eight hours after his injury, HMS Arunta, an Australian navy frigate, managed to extract Yann from his yacht using a RIB (Rigid Inflatable, like a Zodiac). He’s now resting comfortably aboard Arunta, under medical care, and is heading for a civilian hospital in Perth.

The story is all over the BBC just now. This is the first time they’ve even mentioned the Vendée Globe. Well done, BBC. Wait for the big tragedy then cycle it repeatedly.

I’ve been thinking about Elias and what it must have beeen like out there, by yourself with a broken leg, not knowing when help will arrive. The pain was sure to be excruciating. He must have been so grateful to have Marc there for him, even if conditions were too rough for any physical assistance.

The rescue as observed from Safran

It’s the risk you take with such a race. The boats are so fast, the ocean so rough and unpredictable, that a broach or a nose-plant are in no way avoidable. With traditional cruising yachts, your speed is such that the impacts against the waves (and the waves against the boat) have much less force. Water is hard – the impact can be incredibly loud and shake the whole boat, even at just five or six  knots. Image at four times that speed. The impact is unbelievable, even to the racers themselves.

I got thrown around a few times during my time at sea, usually when I had to use both hands for some operation like changing a sail or making tea. I would try and time my activities with the trough of the waves, but the sea is rarely orderly. The waves take on the general pattern of the wind, but when it changes direction (as it does), the seas can take many hours before they are once again in harmony with the wind. In the meantime there’s a lot of chop – waves crashing together from all directions, causing an even higher and more dangerous swell. It’s during this sea-state where accidents happen.

It was one of these cross-waves that probably got Generali.  Head down for one second, working on getting that halyard on, and SLAM.

Much of the rest of the fleet has gotten a little spooked over this unfortunate event. Some have reduced speed, others are now wearing helmets. Elies’ injury will now be part of their decision making process. The ocean is capable of dishing out bucket after bucket of nastiness and misery. It’s not that the ocean is mean or cruel. It’s that there is no way of beating it. One can attempt an understanding though: it’s the only way to get home.

***

More on the rest of the Southern Ocean carnage coming soon….

The quiet barber

I got my hair cut today. I abhor getting my hair cut. It ranks right up with going to the dentist, but at least my dentist offers me good strong drugs. I go to the Glasgow Dental School, which is actually a pretty creepy place. Behind the receptionist you can see one of their classrooms. There’s row upon row of ancient dental chairs, complete with banged up instrument trays and filthy overhead lights. It’s like a bad dream. And not a mannequin to be seen – they practice on live patients. But who would volunteer?

What makes my visits to this horror-film setting so pleasant is the Sedation Suite. This is where they administer the excellent drugs: liquid Valium on a continuous drip. It drowses you out, but you still remain awake. Awake but not giving a shit. When I’m under that Valium spell, they could do anything they want in there and I just wouldn’t care.
The other nice thing about the dental school is all the pretty nurses, assistants, and trainees, all in white and blue uniforms. There’s something about a woman in uniform…

And maybe that’s part of the problem with the hair cutting. Lack of uniforms. It’s also the difficulty I have with telling them what I want. I never know how to describe it. What if I’m wrong? What if my head ends up looking really stupid because I didn’t use the right terms? ‘Medium short’ can be interpreted in so many ways.
My favourite hairdresser – indeed the only hairdresser I even felt comfortable going to – was Cass, back when I lived in Ottawa. We were friends too: we used to drink at the same place. We had an understanding, me and her. Nice and quick, knew what I wanted, and no excessive chatting.

That’s the main problem: the chatting. I don’t enjoy small talk, and it’s impossible to avoid it at the hairdresser’s. Especially with my accent.
“So where are you from?”
Oh shit. Here we go. I try my best unapproachable mumble.
“Canada.”
I’m not excited about it, I’m not leading into anything, and I’m careful that my inflection drops on the final syllable in a bid to discourage anything more.
“Oh, nice! Whereabouts? My Aunt lives in Edmonton.”
There’s always the aunt in Edmonton. In fact, it’s not just hairdressers with Aunts in Edmonton. I’ve met hundreds of Scots who make the same claim. It’s not that I doubt them. It’s not even that I don’t care. It’s just that I don’t like being stuck in that chair subjected to a forced interrogation.

Please, can’t you just cut my hair and leave me alone? But no, just by sitting in that chair I’ve effectively waived my right to privacy.
At some point comes the inevitable “So what brings you to Scotland?” question. Sometimes I feel like just making something up, but even then it would just lead to more questions. Maybe next time I’ll just say: “I’m on the run from the law. I murdered a hairdresser.”

It would be so much easier if I got my hair cut more often. I’d be more fluent in the language of hair; they’d have less hair to cut; maybe I’d even end up finding one that would just cut my hair and not interview me.

To any hairdressers that might be reading this: I mean no offence. You are obviously interested in people and maybe you’re just trying to make your day more interesting. But how do I tell you to stop asking me stuff and just cut my hair, without offending you? I’m nervous and irritable in the barber’s chair. I’m trapped. There’s nowhere to go. I am held captive in a forced one-sided social situation that should have only been a haircut. If I growl you might retaliate: nick my ears, or mess up my hair so badly it takes another year before I return.

And then there’s the mirror. I hate looking into a mirror for that length of time. I hate seeing my awkward attempts to disengage from conversation. This time I made an effort to avoid looking at the mirror at all, hoping that it might also signal my desire for internal reflection and meditation. It didn’t work, of course.

At one barber in Charleston, SC, they sat you in the chair backwards, looking out. I think it was so that the customers could watch the college football on the seven plasma TVs they had there. It felt really strange but it made a heck of a lot more sense. Too bad I’m not a football fan.

I’ve had ear-nicking barbers; I’ve had flaming gay barbers. I’ve had the hairdressers that rub their tits against me at every opportunity, which makes life more interesting but still doesn’t make me any happier being there. I’ve had good barbers and bad barbers. But they’ve all got the curse of the gab.

Please, can you tell me: where is the quiet barber?

Dragon in the showroom

I saw the Dragon today. I was at the Yamaha dealership getting the Fazer’s first service. There was no missing her – there she was, striking a pose in the middle of the showroom floor. A real looker, that bike. I walked past her a number of times as I waited. Each time there was some other emotion there, creeping up around my edges like some new but familiar smell. I knew this bike, knew it well, done some good things with it. I looked for envy, I watched for lust, but I didn’t find it. Of this I was glad. I still admire the GTR14, still think it beautiful, and I was happy to see her. But I surprised myself – I didn’t so much as touch her, let alone trail my fingers in a lingering, wistful stroke.

She was sporting an expensive-looking new front tire. I knew that if I drove her now that some of the handling issues would be solved, that she’d turn so much easier, might even have some of that throwability I so cherish. But I had no doubts.

I could feel myself there. It was strange. Not so long ago that bike was me. It was like seeing an old photograph of myself in some long-ago setting. A feeling of recognition, even warmth. It was a life solidified on the showroom floor. Seeing her there was seeing a reflection of myself in a way that no mirror could ever do.

Only 5,000 miles on this beauty, but now she seemed very much used, a bit scuffed up and not worth a second thought. I saw flashes of speed, of competent carving, of heart-racing mistakes. I saw too the downside, the parts that came before, the emotional conflict.

The experience of seeing her there, down off her pedestal, was fascinating. It was my own story sitting there in that room. The wee scuff marks on the seat, on the tank, on the rear tire – they were all still there. That bike was no longer a machine of its own. For whoever rides her next I’ll be there too.

The strangest feeling was the sense of maleness she now seemed to broadcast. She was always a female to me, but now, it was more like seeing me than seeing an ex-bike. I felt my wife there too, in the background, looking at me in that way she does, even missing me in a way, but I wasn’t even gone.

The Dragon was obviously an important event to my motorcycling self. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything quite like this. Usually, when it’s time to sell the stuff that has touched me in some way, the buyer takes it and is gone. This is different, being able to see her anytime I want. I’m almost feeling lonely just thinking about her in there. I’m here, she’s there, but we used to be the same.

Geeking with the iPod 3G

I love my iPod, but I hate it too – I hates it for real. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve formatted, restored and reconfigured it just to try to get it to behave. But a fully functioning iPod is very nice gadget to have around.

It’s a 3G iPod – third generation – so it’s got a lot of storage space (30 gigs), but from Apple’s point of view it’s a legacy product and not worth supporting. As such we 3G users are not getting any love. We paid the premium but now we’re left out in the desert, watching the 5G nanos leave their glamorous contrails overhead. This is progress.

Lest this post slide sideways into a rant, let me explain just a single problem I’m having here:

I recently added two Christmas CDs to the IPod. Now when I scroll through the artist list, I see Bing Crosby, Perry Como, even Garry Glitter – with only one track available under each artist. I consider this pollution. I don’t want to have to scroll through the chaff. The only time I ever play these songs is when I play the compilation. I need a ‘hide artists that are part of a compilation’ feature.

Although iTunes itself does offer this feature, sadly, my 3rd-generation IPod does not. I am on the latest software and firmware. I have flashed my BIOS and re-initialized my HKU’s. But the ‘compilation’ option is not to be found.

So it seemed to me that I could either use iTunes’ bulk-rename feature, or just delete the compilations entirely. I wasn’t about to do the latter – I have a dozen other compilations which I want to keep. And the former would leave me without any artist information at all.

So I got all geeked out and wrote a little script to fix it for me. The script renames the artist to ‘Christmas Compilation’, for example, and then renames each track to include both the track name and the artist: ‘Bing Crosby – White Christmas’.

The search function in iTunes isn’t affected, as it searches all metadata anyways. So typing ‘Bing’ will still find me the track if for some reason I’m desperate for it.

The script didn’t take long to write (certainly faster than doing it manually for each song on an album), and the result is now a usable iPod. I’m happy. I’m now considering doing something similar for all the singles I have in my collection, as I’m always after an existing playlist or an entire album. Singles be gone.

Ideally I’d like iTunes and the iPod to suck much less than they do. Tags. iPod folders. Allow the autonomy. I am the user.

Just in case you want to geek out with me, I’ve included the relevant c# code below. You can script against iTunes with any COM-compliant language. Just add a reference to iTunes.exe.

Caveat: this makes irreversible changes to your ITunes library! Back it up first.

private void FixCompilation()
{
string albumName = “Christmas Album”;
string newArtistName = “Christmas Compilation 1″;

// get a reference to the objects we need
iTunesLib.iTunesApp app = new iTunesLib.iTunesApp();
iTunesLib.IITSource source = app.LibrarySource;
iTunesLib.IITPlaylist mainPlayList = app.LibraryPlaylist;

// find the tracks
iTunesLib.IITTrackCollection foundTracks =
mainPlayList.Search(albumName,
iTunesLib.ITPlaylistSearchField.ITPlaylistSearchFieldAlbums);

// loop and rename
foreach (iTunesLib.IITTrack track in foundTracks)
{
string newTrackName = track.Artist + ” – ” + track.Name;
track.Name = newTrackName;
track.Artist = newArtistName;
track.Compilation = true;
}

// done.
MessageBox.Show(foundTracks.Count + ” titles changed.”);

}

(My apologies for the formatting. WordPress is such a pain at times).

Just leave a comment if you have any questions about the script.

The Vendée Globe: week four

The start of the 2008 Vendée Globe

This Vendée is as fascinating a Vendée as I can remember. It’s been going for almost four weeks now, and although they’re not even properly into the Southern Ocean yet, the drama of the high seas is already unfolding.

The weather during the first couple of days of the Vendée was appalling. The fleet soon found themselves in the middle of a low, getting battered by six meter waves and 55+ knots of wind: your typical Bay of Biscay storm.

Every boat in the fleet was battered – battered hard. During those first few days, eight boats returned to Les Sables. The rules state that you may start again up to ten days after the official start. Anything other than that and you are disqualified.

The following five boats turned back for repairs:

Dominique Wavre / Temenos II: Electrical problems. He later sorted this out and left on the next tide. He’s now doing well in 12^th; about 250 miles behind the leader.

Bernard Stamm / Cheminées Poujoulat: Collision with what turned out to be a cargo ship. Bowsprit knackered. Turned back for repairs and has made good time, passing the rear of the fleet. He’s now in 16^th, about 600 miles behind the leader.

Michel Desjoyeaux / Foncia: Leaks in his ballast system resulted in electrical issues with his engine (used to charge the batteries). Previous time around he’d had similar issues, so this time he wisely decided to turn back while still fairly close. (One of my favourite video clips from the last Vendée was Mich Desj starting his engine with a block and tackle, using the wind’s strength across the mainsail to pull-start his diesel.)

He’s made a quick turn around, now caught up to 7^th place – less than 100 miles from the leader. That’s some sailing.

Jean Baptiste Dejeanty / Groupe Maisoneuve: Deck panels ripped out in the storm. It took some time to repair; he’s now second-last in 24^th, 1500 miles from the leader.

Derek Hatfield / Algimouss Spirit of Canada – At first some electrical problems, but later realized his mainsail track was also in need of attention. This took a fair bit of work, with plenty of help from other teams. He’s now sailing well, having just sailed a personal best of 368 miles over 24 hours. He’s in 22^nd, 1400 miles from the leader.

* * *

It should be noted that most (if not all) the boats that turned back for repairs received generous help from other teams, their shore crews providing scarce parts or specialized labour. This was especially welcome for less well-financed teams like Hatfield’s Spirit of Canada.

There have also been several retirements due to extensive damage. What would a Vendée Globe be without dismastings and other assorted catastrophic failures?

Here are the five retirees:

Yannick under jury-rig after dismasting

Yannick Bestaven / Aquarelle: Dismasted. This is not easily repairable in 10 days time, even if you have a spare mast. He was devastated. Yannick’s self-portrait (see right) is my favourite photo of the race so far. Note the height of the mast – that’s probably a jib pole or boom. Normally the mast is three or four times that height. The look on his face says everything.

Groupe Bel / Kito de Pavant: Dismasted. He’d been doing so well, too – right up front.

Marc Thiercelin / DCNS: Dismasted – extensive damage. He eventually made it to La Coruña, in northwest Spain, under engine power.

Extensive delamination on the port-side

Alex Thomson / Hugo Boss: Structural problems. Hugo Boss began taking on water due to some stress cracks in her port-side hull. This is the opposite side from where he was hit two weeks before the race; but my feeling is that that initial collision was so hard that it fucked the whole boat. After getting it on a lift back in Les Sables, it was clear that Hugo Boss wasn’t going anywhere soon. This must be heartbreaking for Alex, having busted so many boats in the past.

Said Thomson:“It’s gutting, I feel very sad not only for me, but also my sponsors and the team. These things happen in sailing, you just have to pick yourself up and move forward, my Vendée dreams are not over.”

Jérémie Beyou / Delta Dore: All of the damage to the fleet had so far occurred during the storms in the Bay of Biscay; Delta Dore’s occurred during her third week at sea, almost in the Southern Ocean. Her spreaders came loose on the starboard side, severely compromising the mast’s integrity. I hate when that happens. Jérémie found a spot to anchor (allowed by the rules if unassisted) and, after surveying the damage, decided it was impossible to repair himself. Jérémie has retired from the race.

An great quote from Jérémie a week before his retirement:

“Everything is fine, except that the lads ahead of me are going really fast. When I match their pace, it really gets to me, as it’s very hard on the boat. I’m surprised about how much of a risk they are taking. I don’t want to lecture anyone, but I don’t feel like sailing in that way. It’s tough seeing them get away. But I always remember that the equipment will let you know at some moment what you have put it through.”

* * *

The dismasted and otherwise terminally damaged vessels all made it back to port unaided, which at least allowed the solo sailor to retain his dignity. This is important – even expected – for the solo sailor. He is self-reliant, resourceful, and maintains a fierce conviction that he will find a way to proceed. After all, he must – there is no one else. And if that involves using a jib pole as a mast then so be it.

For the solo sailor a tow would be ignoble and contrary to all that solo sailing is about. A tow would not be keeping with the spirit if the Vendée.

Mike Golding on Ecover is doing well, though after crossing the line first was told he’d crossed too early and had to turn back around. This left him on his back foot, though he has made up good time. He’s now bouncing around between 5^th and 9^th, right up there with the top of the pack, less than 100 miles away from the leader.

Dominque Wavre on Temenos II sailing fast

Derek Hatfield in Spirit of Canada (I can’t bring myself to affix the sponsor’s name) is one of the slower boats in the fleet, yet he just did 368 miles in 24 hours. That staggers in my brain a bit.

One of my rituals on my seven-week single-handed transatlantic crossing was the ‘noon sighting’, where I’d find out where I was, then calculate how far I’d come from the previous day’s sighting. Of course, I wasn’t taking sights with a sextant; although I did have one on board. I just used the GPS. My best mileage was somewhere around 150 nautical miles. This says something about these Open 60’s, and probably something about their skippers too. The solo record is some 500 plus miles, which I believe is held my Alex Thomson.

Since the frenetic start (and restart for some) it’s been relatively quiet for the last two weeks. There have been seven different leaders so far.

Sebastion Josse on a well-trimmed BT

In the next few days the leading pack will be rounding the Cape of Good Hope, where they can expect their first major storm of the Southern Ocean, with winds gusting to 65 knots. I can’t wait!

You can monitor the fleet’s position and the skippers’ standings using the Vendée website’s Race Tracker, available from the ‘In the Race’ menu at the top of their homepage.

Beautiful, creepy, and weird

No, I’m not talking about my wife again.

I’m taking about the mysterious Magnapinna, the giant squid that is rarely seen alive. Follow the link for some amazing footage.