Vendée Globe – Setbacks for Sébastien Destremau and Alex Thomson

by Vendée Globe on 9 Sep 2016 During the checks required by the IMOCA class for all the competitors in the Vendée Globe, the mast on faceOcean, Sébastien Destremau’s boat, broke into four pieces in St-Mandrier in the South of France. This incident is a major setback with just two months to go to the start of the non-stop solo round the world race. Alex Thomson has also suffered some important damage, breaking a foil on his Hugo Boss, the new generation IMOCA.

“It’s a nightmare! Dismasting two months before the start of the Vendée Globe is something I could have done without.” Sébastien Destremau could not hide his disappointment after this damage occurred last week to his IMOCA 60.
“During the routine checks, which involve putting the boat over on her side at 90°, the shroud (D4), which holds up the mast, broke, causing the spar to fall down. This is not the first trauma for faceOcean and we’re not giving up. With our team and partners, we are doing our utmost to be there at the start on 6th November,” explained Sébastien, who will be attending the official Vendée Globe press conference at the Palais Brongniart (the French Stock Exchange) in Paris on 14th September.

Alex Thomson breaks his port foil
After her final refit ahead of the Vendee Globe, Alex Thomson and his team have been testing the boat in The Solent (England) and capturing data in preparation for the solo round the world race. The team is pleased with the boat’s performance, but during a sail over the weekend the port foil on Hugo Boss broke.

Alex explained that he was sailing on calm seas in 20 knots of wind with Hugo Boss at a speed of between 26 and 28 knots, when the incident happened. “The foil broke just outside the boat. We had to stabilise things, the foil was going up and down. We wanted to keep the end to be able to learn about what happened. There is clearly a problem of some kind. Maybe to do with the engineering or maybe to do with the manufacture. In any case, it wasn’t down to any user error, so we are trying to identify the causes. We have cut the foil up into sections. We can clearly see how much power there was and how destructive it was. The carbon block is completely destroyed.”

As for the Vendée Globe, Alex Thomson is returning to version number one. “It’s not the best thing, but we know that this version is reliable. These foils have already covered 10,000 miles and we’re confident they are strong enough to do the job. Reliability is our first priority. As for performance, we weren’t expecting a giant leap forward with version two. And while in certain conditions we may suffer, it’s certainly not the end of the world. To finish first in the Vendée Globe, first you have to finish and these will get us to the finish.”