Vendée Globe, Giancarlo Pedote at Cape Horn improving his 2021 passage

Giancarlo Pedote rounded Cape Horn on his 56th day of racing: pending official timekeeping, the Italian skipper has definitely improved on his first passage time at the Horn in the 2021 edition of the Vemdée Globe, when he took 57 days 11 hours and 52 minutes. During the 2021 round-the-world race that time was worth the momentary ninth position, 700 miles behind leader Yannick Bestaven; now, however, Pedote is 18th over 4,000 miles behind Charlie Dalin, who meanwhile is already in the Northern Hemisphere. We dwell on these figures because they make it clear how the level of the fleet, of the new boats in particular, has risen exponentially during this edition: the latest generation foilers in 2021 still lacked reliability, while this time they have practically made a vacuum behind them. This is all net of a race conducted by Pedote at a similar pace to last Vendée, in fact a bit faster. Probably without some technical problems, which slowed him down, Pedote could have passed by the Horn already 2 or 3 days ago, confirming that his remains a good race despite a means that cannot allow him to keep up with the leaders and a race conduct that was cautious at times in order not to compromise the health of the boat, which in any case gave him some significant problems.

Dalin and Richomme in the North Atlantic.

Yoann Richomme took advantage of Dalin’s passage through a not-so-lucky transition zone between the southeast and northeast trade winds to partly shorten his delay, which is now back under 100 miles. This could also be a bit of a physiological elastic effect, not least because Dalin has an already different course due to wind rotation, a rotation that Richomme will soon feel as well. In fact, at the head of the fleet in the last few hours there have been no major twists and turns, and it is likely that Charlie Dalin’s lead, barring unforeseen circumstances, in this Northeast Trade Wind may continue to be quite solid.

About the struggle at the top of this Vendée Globe and Giancarlo Pedote’s Cape Horn we will talk about in the next episode of The Vendée Globe Process airing on our Facebook and YouTube channels on January 8 at 6:30 pm. Joining us will be ocean racers Francesca Clapcich and Alberto Bona and our weather coach Gianni Bianchini.

Mauro Giuffrè

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