1800 Update
What a great shame that Alex Thomson has had to retire from the race as his boat showed so much potential.
But without his starboard rudder he could only sail safely on the starboard tack and that would have created huge and potentially dangerous problems if he had continued.
He is heading now for Cape Town, 1,800 miles away, which, as he is nursing his boat, should take him 7-10 days.
We know that if it had been possible to find a way to repair the damaged rudder he would have done it, but he has had to accept that good seamanship could not have got him out of this problem.
He has made the right decision in the circumstances. It will be a bitter disappointment for Alex, who was our best British hope for a victory for the first time ever in the Vendée Globe Race.
What a B——t.
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Just as it looked as if Alex Thomson was on his way again we learn that he has damaged his starboard rudder last evening. Now the problem with these Open 60’s is that they are wide, so when they heel over the windward rudder is usually out of the water, or mostly. He will be able to sail as normal when on the starboard tack, as his port rudder is OK, but when he has to gybe or tack onto the port tack, without his starboard rudder he won’t be able to over press the boat in order to keep it more upright and the port rudder in the water. Details of the damage and its possible cause have yet to come through, but in the last four hours he has been averaging only 10 knots whilst the boats around him are saiing almost twice as fast.
I am not sure whether he has a spare rudder aboard or he will have to go back to using his boatbuilding skills to make repairs, if that is an option. He is not having much luck, but rememeber the old saying, “When the going gets tough the tough get going!"
When I went round the world in 1968/9 my spare rudder was a steering oar, standard equipment in ship’s lifeboats in those days. ( In medieval times, before the invention of rudders, this was the standard method of steering and the oar was usually on the starboard side, hence Steerbord, whwich became, in English, Starboard) That could work on an Open 60, although no one seems t carry an oar for this these days, but it could only work at very reduced speed and how long can you steer in a day?
The current speeds given on the website can be a bit misleading, they appear to be snapsgots, so I prefer to look at the averages over the past 4 hours for each boat. The leading boats are now ahving to consider the exclusion zone, put in by the organisers to keep the boats away from Antarctic ice. Large bergs can drift north and flying along at close to 20 knots, even with all the modern technology aboard, icebergs do not show up well on radar so this is a sensible restriction. Apivia is still holding a comfortable lead over the rest of the fleet, 324 miles ahaed of second placed Linked Out. Jean Le Cam still holds 3rd place with a cushion of 80 miles over 4th placed Maitre Coq IV. Sam Davis is making good speed in 9th position 548 miles astern of the leader.