JACQUES VABRE DISASTER, Hugo Boss Sinks, VIDEO

Alex Thomson and Guillermo Altadill, skippers of the late-generation IMOCA 60 Hugo Boss, were rescued by helicopter by the Coast Guard after they activated their EPIRB at 1:25 p.m. Oct. 30 while 82 miles off the Spanish coast. The boat sank: it had gone through some structural damage that forced the two sailors, absolute stars of the race up to that point, to repair to La Coruna where the shore team would be waiting for them. After 36 hours of sailing in high winds and rough seas, the damage worsened and the boat began taking on water…

THE VIDEO OF THE RESCUE

FOUR OUT OF FIVE OUT
This is a tough Jacques Vabre: already 15 retirements (10 of them among the IMOCAs alone: most recently the dismasting of Spirit of Hungary), illustrious and otherwise. The other latest generation IMOCA, St Michel Virbac, with Jean-Pierre Dick and Fabien Delahaye aboard, also had to stop in Madeira due to structural damage to a hull reinforcing rib. In short, 4 out of 5 of the brand new foil-equipped boats that have come out of VPLP’s pencil are out of the running-it’s already a controversy. Some people are already wondering if some structural calculations were wrong. But on the other hand, the only new IMOCA left in the race is more than an exception: Banque Populaire VIII, by Armel Le Cleac’h and Erwan Tabarly, currently leads the standings by a whopping 120 miles…

PEDOTE IN HEAD
Good news instead among the Multi 50s. Giancarlo Pedote and Erwan Le Roux had said as much.: they had not yet started racing. They have now taken the lead with their fast FenêtréA Prysmian with a 122-mile lead over Ciela Village of Thierry Bouchard and Oliver Krauss.