I do not remember another race of this length in distance and time, that has ever provided such a close finish with four boats finishing within 9 hours and three more to finish shortly. It was as exciting and dramatic as anything I have ever seen. The sailors, tired at the end of their marathon, probably the toughest sporting event you can ever ask of anyone, fought through right to the end. Huge respect and congratulations to them all.
The finishing times are:-
Charlie Dalin, Apivia. 80 days, 06 hrs, 15 mins, 47 secs
Louis Burton, Bureau Vallée. 80 days, 10 hrs, 25 mins, 12 secs
Thomas Ruyant, LinkedOut. 80 days, 15 hrs, 22 mins, 01 secs
Yannick Bestaven, Maître CoQ. 80 days, 13 hours, 59 mins, 46 seconds
But Charlie Dalin had the lead snatched from him. In the end it came down to the time Redress granted to boats that helped to rescue Kevin Escoffier. For those unfamiliar with the process, it is a standard means to compensate racing yachts for time lost by the need to divert to assist another seafarer in distress. It is the duty of every vessel to do this and in a race it is usual for the Race Director/Committee to select the most appropriate boats, which usually means the closest, and ask them to stop racing to assist. Race Committees through their juries, an International jury in this case, then have to decide as fairly as they can from information supplied by trackers and reports, exactly how much the rescuer was disadvantaged and calculate the compensation, called redress. Having had to calculate this on a number of occasions myself it is never easy, but the Vendée Globe Jury seemed to have got it as fair as possible.
So the actual racing finishing positions after redress allowances are:-
Yannick Bestaven, Maître CoQ. 80d, 03 hrs, 44 mins, 46 secs
Charlie Dalin, Apivia. 80 days, 06 hrs, 15 mins, 47 secs
Louis Burton, Bureau Vallée 2. 80 days, 10 hrs, 25 mins, 12 secs
Thomas Ruyant, LinkedOut. 80 days, 15 hrs, 22 mins, 01 secs
Last evening we watched Charlie Dalin gybe towards the finish. He has sailed an excellent race tactically and deserved his place as the Line Honours winner. Sad that he did not win overall, but people will remember his almost clinical performance. Louis Burton too, held the lead for a time and has sailed a great race. Boris Herrmann never had the lead in this race, but had always been close to the lead, indeed looked good to win after redress until a collision with a fishing boat last night damaged his boat and his chances of being the first non-Frenchman to ever win this race disappeared. Thomas Ruyant has always been amongst the leaders. Yannick Bestaven, who lead for a while almost lost the race off the Brazilian coast but pulled back to clinch a classic win in the end
Boris Herrmann is nursing his boat towards the line and should finish in about 3 hours. Rapidly approaching the finish line are Groupe Apicil 58 miles to go and Prysmian Group 63 miles ,so these three will be close. Jean Le Cam, the hero of the Kevin Escoffier rescue who will receive a huge reception by the enthusiastic citizens of Les Sables, is 193 miles to go but his a redress allowance of 16 hours and 15 minutes to apply to his finish time which could move him up the positions but not to the Podium.
Communications have enabled us to follow these sailors around the world, and watch their final efforts. It has provided an enthralling spectacle with changes of lead, drama, and sheer gutsy sailing. Compare that with 52 years ago, when there were no satellites and we were dependant on unreliable radios to report our positions. Bernard Moitessier had retired for his own reasons, 3 weeks behind me at Cape Horn but we did not know that at the time. It was rather assumed that I had sunk as no one had heard anything of me for 4 1/2 months owing to no working radio. So for the organisers the competition was between two multihulls, one sailed by Nigel Tetley and the other by Donald Crowhurst. But Crowhurst had not sailed around the world. He hung around the South Atlantic sending false messages which came out eventually. (See the film “The Mercy”). And then I managed to get a message through to a merchant ship off the Azores by signal lamp to say I was coming and still afloat and sailing Dramatic, yes, it caused chaos to the organisers predictions, but there was no very tight close finish like we have just seen. In fact it took me 17 days to cover those last 1,100 miles from the Azores to the finish!
What a race this has been. The winner is now declared but let us not forget those still out there still racing and making their way to the finish line. Some will not finish for a month and never had a chance of a podium position, but in this very tough Vendée Globe race, everyone who finishes is a winner.