Steering system failure for Yannick Bestaven

They might have been upwards of 60 miles off the actual lighthouse, but for the skipper who passed Cape Horn today the moment of release is the same nonetheless. The realisation that the Pacific is done, the Southern Oceans are safely completed, might only be fleeting but it is a key moment.

Since Thomas Ruyant (VULNERABLE) crossed Cape Horn last night at 17:38:29hrs UTC two more skippers have passed. Jérémie Beyou (Charal) and Nico Lunven (HOLCIM-PRB) crossed just fifteen minutes apart in fifth and sixth places respectively, Beyou some 10 hours and 38 minutes behind Ruyant. Both,…

With just 238 miles between fifth placed Jérémie Beyou (Charal) and 11th positioned Yannick Bestaven (Maître CoQ V) a veritable cavalcade of Vendée Globe skippers will pass Cape Horn tomorrow. At forecast speeds they should pass with 12 or 13 hours from early Saturday morning in a more compact…

With its 17 ships and 6 underwater vehicles, the French Oceanographic Fleet has a team of 1,800 scientists active each year to gain a better understanding of the world’s oceans.

The top two skippers on the Vendée Globe are bidding farewell today to the ice exclusion zone which has been their friend and enemy ever since they first felt its effects on the 12th December at Marion Island.

Expansion and compression. Stretching and rebounding. The elastic effect is seen all the way through the Vendée Globe fleet. Mostly it is driven by the evolution and timing of weather systems, especially in the train of low pressures in the Southern Oceans, where the wind comes from the west, from…