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Vendée Globe

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Published 09:32 on 2 Dec 2020

Some of you may have been following the amazing exploits of these 33 skippers. Three suffered serious damage due to UFOs. Either the skippers are unlucky or the oceans are full of man-made rubbish! A further four of the IMOCA Open 60's have had significant breakages. Sadly, after several days of repairs to the main longitudinal beam of his boat Alex Thompson has to retire a few hours later when his rudder was damaged by a UFO. The most dramatic and perilous breakage is that of Kevin Escoffier of PRB who broke his boat in two (bow pointing up at 90% to the deck) ploughing into heavy swell at 27knts SW of Cape Town.

He was as rescued by Jean Le Cam, a 60 year old veteran, after 12 hours in a life raft. He had 2 minutes preparation to get into the life raft before the raft and he were washed overboard. So far despite this attrition more Skippers than usual are going to be in the stormy Southern ocean for the next month.

I should of course make reference to the three remaining British skippers who are doing brilliantly - Sam Davies (Portsmouth High), Pip Hare (HISC) and Miranda Merron, yes all women (another three in the fleet).

Spare a thought for the families now and over Christmas. Here are a few words from Pippa Blake, which give an insight into the team that will be behind each of these skippers, although I'm guessing the preparation is a little different these days.

"I have particular memories of spending days packing food for the Enza trip in my parents dining room - we had a bin for each week of freeze dried and porridge food for 8 men, - 77 days in total ..with a few treats packed amongst them . ..Then the arrival back into Brest was spectacular - a raging Force 10 storm - the worst weather of the whole trip - they went down to storm tri-sail with all chains and warps streaming from the sterns as sea anchors. I had an amazing experience of going out in a search and rescue helicopter with the door off for a cameraman. There was a French frigate also out with photographers and the seas were so huge that we kept losing sight of the frigate and Enza's mast as we all dipped up and down in the wave troughs".

Pippa is of course referring to her experience of the 1994 Jules Verne round the World Trophy. The 2020 Jules Verne got off to a bad start last week with Maxi Edmond de Rothschild returning to port with a damaged rudder, you guessed it, due to a UFO.

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