Alex Thomson: “I will do anything to stay in the regatta.”

Hugo Boss is back on course, Alex Thomson should have tackled most of the repair, and probably heading into the final stages of surgery today to repair in damaged spar at the bow. A problem that will cost him more than 24 hours of enforced shutdown, with an appreciable loss of miles, estimated at around 500. Regarding the reliability of the boat, on the other hand, it is highly unlikely that the Briton will continue on to the Southern Ocean without having sufficient reassurance in this regard.

So Thomson in the night before tackling the repair to the bow:

“Hello everyone,
Finding out that the boat was damaged at first was a bit of a shock, but it could have been worse. The damage is repairable and we are not yet in the southern ocean. The first part of the whole job was explaining to my team what had happened. Today it is much easier than a few years ago with communications. So I called Ross (the technical director) and he put together the right group of people-the designers, the engineers, our team-and while that information was being studied by them I finally took a nice moment to sleep. Knowing that when I woke up there would be a big job waiting for me to complete, I slept about six hours so that I would be ready. We began to go over the repair plan so that I could fully understand it and ask the right questions. The first part was to stabilize the hull, so I had to cut, glue and bolt it. That was done and it was laminated. The next part is to prepare the rest of the surgery. I have to put all the materials together and do most of the cutting now while the wind is still light. I still have a couple of hours of daylight left, so I’m going to cut and then the rest doesn’t matter because it’s on the bow and it’s dark in there anyway.It’s really humid, it’s pretty hard on the bow. On Hugo Boss we loaded quite a lot of materials-underwater resin, glues that can deal with wet conditions-I guess a lot of other teams don’t board as much material as we do. It’s a pretty complicated job, so I don’t have to rush it and make sure it’s done right. I’m disappointed of course, but this is the Vendée Globe. This is what it entails. You have to be able to deal with these things. This is why we bring these materials and tools and why we are generally very good at handling these things. Normally I feel angry, sad, but not this time. I just need to move on. I’m sure at some point the emotions might turn around even though, for now, there is only one thing to do, and that is to get the job done as best as possible. I will do whatever it takes to stay in the race.”

The race meanwhile goes on with a new leader, Charlie Dalin on Apivia who has an 18-mile lead over Linkedout. The two are engaging in a true Atlantic jibe match race, probably even spotted each other at times, and certainly monitoring each other via radar and AIS, for a challenge that is becoming increasingly exciting.

Also hurrying south is Giancarlo Pedote, just over 600 miles behind the leader, currently in 13th position and close to entering an area with little wind. In Prysmian’s sights is the overtaking of Damien Seguin and Benjamin Dutrex.

Mauro Giuffrè

TRACKING