Vendée Globe: Dalin and Richomme in the Tradewinds Highway, Pedote battles a technical problem and solves it

The new year begins with the two Vendée Globe leaders grappling with the transition phase into the Southeast Trade Wind off the coast of Brazil. Charlie Dalin and Yoann Richomme are permanently transitioning out of the South Atlantic weather systems and into the Trade Wind, a phase that has forced them into a few days in the light wind. A situation in which Dalin and Macif have seemed more comfortable, as they have come from nearly 100 miles behind to having a 30-mile lead over their direct opponent. Temperatures aboard the Imoca 60s are beginning to rise, and the skippers will savor easier conditions for a few days even though the pace of speed will soon go up a great deal. As soon as they enter the stable flow of the Trade Wind the Imoca’s will be sailing in ideal conditions and so expect to see speeds well above 20 knots again. On paper the Trade Wind condition, medium wind and moderate wave, is more favorable to Dalin and Macif, but this Vendée Globe has taught us that surprises are constant. The lead over Le Cleac’h’s 74-day record is now down to 800 miles, but will likely grow again as speeds increase. The finish line in Les Sables is just over 4,000 miles away.

Pedote’s difficulties and Bestaven’s withdrawal.

Giancarlo Pedote has returned to face a difficult phase of his Vendée Globe aboard Prysmian. The Tuscan has complained of a major failure in the rudder system of his Imoca 60, a fact that has greatly slowed him down in recent days with an inevitable loss of miles on his direct rivals for the top 20. Pedote would seem to have overcome the technical problem and regained good speed; Cape Horn for him is now just over 1,000 miles away, roughly 3 days of sailing. Meanwhile, due to a problem not too different from that suffered by Pedote, Yannick Bestaven left the scene, the winner of the same Vendée Globe threw in the towel and stopped in Ushuaia, Argentina. It had become impossible for him to continue his Vendée Globe in race mode, and stopping was the safest decision. We will talk about this and much more today in the new episode of The Vendée Globe Trial, live from 6:30 p.m. on our YouTube and Facebook channels. Joining us will be ocean racer Francesca Clapcich, our weather coach Gianni Bianchini, and Antal’s Techical Aplication Manager Bernardo Zin.

We will cover several topics, from weather scenarios to the profiles of the two leaders, Dalin and Richomme in fact are both Naval Architects and we will try to understand how their scientific training affected their performance. We will then address other technical topics, such as masthead ascent for soloists, and again we will have a focus on the failures of Giancarlo Pedote and Yannick Bestaven.

Mauro Giuffrè

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Follow the Vendèe Globe with the Sailing Newspaper! In the section “The Vendèe Globe Newspaper” you will find all the latest news about the race, while on our Youtube channel, every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., “The Vendèe Globe Trial” (in collaboration with Raymarine, Antal and Gottifredi&Maffioli) goes live, where our experts, along with a parterre de roi of great sailing guests, comment on the great adventure of the solo round-the-world race.