Seventh in the last Vendée Globe, the disabled sailor experienced a terrible misadventure during the night on the Route du rhum.
Seventh in the last Vendée Globe in which he fought hard at the front, Damien Seguin experienced the worst last night on the Route du rhum. While sailing 250 miles west of Les Sables d’Olonne, the port of departure and arrival of the solo round the world race, his Imoca Apicil monohull was hit by a freighter. And in the shock, the mast of his boat fell. “ He immediately informed Jean-Charles Monnet his technical director and the race direction. The skipper is fine and uninjured. He is currently trying to clear the mast and has set up flash lights to be spotted.“, said his team in a press release indicating that the sailor was not requesting assistance.
Even if the conditions in the area at 3.30 a.m. were announced “ manageable with little sea “, freeing the deck of a boat from its broken mast is an extremely complicated undertaking. And even more when you are deprived of a hand (since birth) like Damien Seguin. But the navigator saw others, and being the good sailor that he is, he did not want any assistance trying to set up a jury rig himself that would allow him to reach land.
Dalin flies south
Ranked 14e in his class, Damien Seguin has to let the fleet of monohulls in the Vendée Globe led by Charlie Dalin slip away with regret, this Friday 11 November, the day of the armistice of the 1914-1918 war but also of Saint-Martin. And the Le Havre, even as a good Samaritan that he is, does not intend to split his lead in two (his coat for Martin) as he approaches Cape Finisterre. The second in the last Vendée Globe is the big favorite for this Route du rhum and has an 87-mile lead over Thomas Ruyant (LinkedOut) presented as his biggest rival on the southern route, Louis Duc (Fives – Lantana Environnement) being pointed at 12 miles but 220 miles much further north and on a much more exposed route during depression passages. “ It’s blowing between 35 and 40 knots, I’ve put the race on hold a bit. It should pass, there is no reason “, he said.