Stéphane Le Diraison 18th to finish the Vendée Globe
French skipper Stéphane Le Diraison crossed the finish line of the Vendée Globe this Thursday night on his Time for Oceans at 21:36hrs UTC taking 18th place and narrowly missing out on going one better, after a close match race with Swiss skipper Alan Roura which has gone on for the last week of their race. The two, racing very similar Finot Conq designs built for the 2008-9 Vendée Globe, were at times racing within sight of each other, their head-to-head reprising a match race to the finish line of the last Route du Rhum, with Le Diraison finishing just over 2 hours behind the young Swiss skipper.