Vendée Globe: Sebastien Destremau gives up on sailing regatta around the world

Icon: enlarge

Sebastien Destremau also sails an Imoca like this one (symbol picture)

Photo: LOIC VENANCE / AFP

The Vendée Globe has the next failure.

After persistent problems, Sébastien Destremau had to give up the race.

The organizer announced.

At the time of the surrender, Destremau was in 26th place - last in the field of those not yet eliminated.

The 56-year-old has recently faced a number of difficulties.

Most recently, the autopilot and steering system had caused problems on board, and he had also discovered a large crack in the bow of the yacht.

At the time of the abandonment, Destremau was about 60 nautical miles from Dunedin, New Zealand, approximately 7500 nautical miles behind the lead group, which separated about 3400 nautical miles from the finish line in Les Sables d'Olonne, France.

The starting field is currently led by Charlie Dalin with the yacht »Apivia«.

The regatta also started in Les Sables d'Olonne in southern France on November 8th.

From there it went alone and non-stop across the Atlantic around the Antarctic, through storms along the drift ice border.

The fastest boats are expected back in France at the end of January, after around 80 days at sea.

For Destremau it was the second participation in the circumnavigation.

In the last edition in 2016/2017, he reached the goal after 124 days.

His yacht, the "Merci", had already been launched in two Vendée editions with other skippers since it was built in 1998.

Of the 33 starters, eight had to give up the regatta so far.

Isabelle Joschke, Samantha Davies (collision with drifting object), Fabrice Amedeo (problems with on-board computer), Nicolas Troussel (broken mast), Kevin Escoffier (shipwreck), Alex Thomson (broken rudder) and Sebastien Simon (wing and rudder damaged) had already retired.

On average over the past editions, only a little over half of the boats managed to successfully complete the regatta.

Icon: The mirror

era