"It's another slap in the face," reported the German yesterday, visibly frustrated, from aboard his "Seaexplorer". After the generator had failed shortly before, which he was able to repair quickly, another disaster hit him just a few hours later: "While reefing, I damaged the sail between the second and third reef, a batten got under a want." The sail tore in the process. Herrmann has been working feverishly on a repair since last night, was still traveling at 9 a.m. this morning at only 7.6 knots, while the competition sails almost twice as fast. First he had to stick on patches, now he's probably sewing them up.
Herrmann reports on his sail crack in the large
"I will never give up the fight, but I've lost my position and that hurts. It hurts a lot," he said shortly after his fourth Cape Horn passage, only under headsail J3. "I couldn't see the cape, I sailed too far south. It would have been too dangerous, even with the wind, to get closer to the shelf." During his rounding of Cape Horn, the German reported gusts of around 40 knots and - as can be seen in the video of the repair - of high, very chaotic seas, which of course makes repairs on deck extremely difficult.
The anger also ensured that Maxime Sorrel ("V and B - Mayenne") and Ciancarlo Pedote ("Prysmian Groupe") slipped through and now sail around 30 nautical miles ahead of him.
To make matters worse, there was bad news from Franco-German Isabelle Joschke yesterday: The cylinder of her Kiel hydraulic system is badly damaged:
"I went below deck to rest and after half an hour I heard a crack from the keel, which slowly began to sink. I knew immediately that something was wrong. I immediately called my team. I was looking for hydraulic leaks. For a test I wanted to turn on the motor for the hydraulics, there was a loud metallic noise. Then I noticed that the hydraulic cylinder had ripped off the keel. The boat is not in danger, we have a system to lock the keel in the middle position."
On top of that, Joschke tore a gennaker shortly before, and she lost her wind indicator in the mast, which makes the autopilot very ineffective. The Franco-German woman was correspondingly disappointed. Her successful rounding of Cape Horn in eleventh place, just over an hour behind Boris Herrmann, was drowned out by disappointment.
Meanwhile, the race continues as usual: Yannick Bestaven is still in the lead and has extended his lead over Charlie Dalin's "Apivia" to 209 miles. Behind it, Thomas Ruyant seems to be putting everything on one card with his "LinkedOut", he is driving an extremely risky course closer to the land, directly into the high ahead of him. He is probably hoping to be able to cross it or that it will move eastward so quickly that he will not be held up for as long as the weather maps previously suggest. So he could make up miles on the two leaders - or park in the doldrums. In any case, he will have to sail close to the wind for a long time, while Bestaven and Dalin may catch strong winds northeast of the high altitude.
Status of the race at 9 o'clock
You can find the racer tracker here
An exciting head-to-head race is now beginning in the South Atlantic. The field has fanned out widely, the distances between the skippers have partly increased a little. Damien Seguin ("Groupe Apicil"), who has taken the path to the east to the high, but is still confidently in fourth place with his non-foiler, continues to sail enormously. Behind them, Louis Burton ("Bureau Vallée 2"), who demands everything from his boat and himself, and sails only 18 miles behind Benjamin Dutreux ("OmiWater Family"), is doing everything possible to catch up with his compatriot today. Which seems quite possible, which was almost four knots faster that morning.