Vendee Globe: More carnage

The 20-strong fleet that started the Vendée Globe has already been reduced to 16 and the trauma of this toughest of sailing races continued on the eighth day, with the news that Jérémie Beyou (Maître CoQ) had suffered a broken hydraulic jack in his keel. With a sudden clean break causing his boat to lurch his canting keel was left swinging loose beneath the boat. He immobilised it with ropes but was taking in water where the keel is attached to the boat and and is headed to Santo Vincente, Mindelo, in the Cape Verde islands, 40 miles away, at a speed of 5-6 knots. He should arrive on Sunday night.

“I heard a noise,” Beyou, who had been in seventh and was part of the lead group, said. “I had been sailing without a problem all day long, the boat was going at a speed of 21 knots, and suddenly I felt the direction change. The hydraulic jack is broken, it’s a very clean break, the attachment between the keel head and the jack is gone. The pumps are pumping the water out of the boat. The damaged parts are very sensitive ones, key ones. I turned downwind to limit the damage but water was coming in anyway. I need to find a quieter place to think about what to do. I can’t go faster than 5-6 knots so it should take me 6-7 hours to reach a calmer area off Cape Verde.What a tough blow for the Maître CoQ skipper. Since then, Jérémie Beyou has been forced to divert to Cape Verde to seek shelter and try to find a solution to this major technical issue.

Everything was going perfectly last night on Maître CoQ, as the monohull was effortlessly sailing downwind at a speed of 21 knots. Beyou was resting in the cockpit when he heard a huge muffled noise. The boat then luffed up and the keel lurched to 10 degrees.

The Maître CoQ skipper soon realised the head of his keel hydraulic jack – which allows it to move laterally and makes it more efficient - had broken. Beyou managed to secure it with ropes but the repairing will not resist the thousands and thousands of miles still ahead in this round-the-world race. Today, with a 25-knot wind and a rough sea, Beyou has already had to restrain his Maître CoQ in order to preserve his repairing.

Luckily enough, the Cape Verde islands are relatively close and provide a welcome shelter while thinking hard to find a possible solution to this tricky technical problem.