sailing

The roaring waves, the icebergs, the seaman’s grave off Cape Horn, the loneliest point on earth: most of the sailors of the Vendée Globe have left all of this behind. And still an invisible bond seems to hold the sailors together after thousands and thousands of waves crashing on the boat after more than 50,000 kilometers. After more than 76 days of hardship, the decision actually seems to be made in a head-to-head race – like in a match race for a whole fleet.

Normally, at the Vendée Globe, the intervals are counted in days. Sometimes the sailors are so far apart that the leaders see the sun rise while the others see the night fall. But this time everything is different: if the last six sailors crossed the finish line four years ago, the first half-dozen could reach the port of Les Sables-d’Olonne on the French Atlantic coast on Wednesday or Thursday within hours .

But a solo circumnavigation is less of a race than an adventure. There are hardly any certainties, especially not those that will arrive.

Boris Herrmann has long gained the respect of the French

Because originally the Briton Alex Thomson started as a great challenger to the French, he wanted to finally break the dominance of France in the regatta. On his fifth attempt, it should work out with victory, for which he had a radical boat built. But even before the first Advent he had to give up with a broken starboard rudder. Eight out of 33 participants have so far had to give up the sails. Some met again in Cape Town, in the “port of the unfortunate”, as the sailor Boris Herrmann calls the place, because those who had to give up early in the race drag themselves there.

Now it is not Thomson, but Boris Herrmann who has won the respect of the predominantly French competition. At the ninth edition of the Vendée Globe, the native of Oldenburg could challenge France as a sailing nation. The German is given far more than just outsider chances: “We could have a non-French on the podium this time, so why not dream of victory too?” Said Armel Le Cléac’h, the winner of the previous edition.

Until Sunday morning, 36-year-old Charlie Dalin, a French boatbuilding engineer who a trade magazine calls the “foil whisperer” because he has a keen sense for the dance on the wings, was in the front. The competition is also puzzling over how well his boat is in good shape; Dalin is buttoned up. His compatriot Louis Burton, 35, who recently risked a lot with a more westerly course and has gained an advantage with this maneuver, sails tied. Even in the Southern Sea he chose a brutal course along the Arctic Ocean, which catapulted him far forward. That also needs Herrmann’s respect: “Luis Burton seems to be a tough daredevil, quite the opposite to me,” he said on Friday in a video link. Therefore Herrmann sees little chance of catching up with him.

Maybe he doesn’t have to. Should no competitor be able to stand out, then the time credits from the rescue operation in the South Atlantic could ultimately decide on the top positions. At the beginning of December, Jean Le Cam, 61, had fished his 40-year-old competitor Kevin Escoffier out of the water after endless hours, Herrmann and Yannick Bestaven had also turned up and had spent the night searching. Le Cam got the biggest bonus (16 hours and fifteen minutes), Bestaven (10 hours and fifteen minutes) and Herrmann (six hours) a smaller compensation.

And now it looks like the top trio will be able to break away in the next few days: The forecasts of the weather gurus of the Vendée Globe expect that Burton, Dalin and Herrmann could still make the jump into a cheaper wind corridor, while the pursuers in one Zone with light winds get stuck. It could of course – and this is the lesson not only from this Vendée Globe – turn out quite differently.

The fleet is now heading for the Azores Islands, where a high pressure area is waiting, after which every jibe could be decisive: “How we get through the low pressure areas and through the cold fronts, when exactly we jibe, how we catch the wind shifters, that will make the difference” , believes Herrmann. “The podium is not certain,” said Herrmann on Friday, “I could also finish seventh.”

In the Whatsapp group of sailors that Herrmann set up, things have become quieter since the top has left Cape Horn behind and is heading towards the goal: “We have become real competitors again.”

The sky is as empty as the sea, only albatrosses and space pods come here. “We are closer to the astronauts than to the people on earth,” says the Hamburg skipper Boris Herrmann. “Point Nemo”, the “Pole of Inaccessibility” – this spot of water in the South Pacific, which the sailors of the Vendée Globe are passing these days, has many names. The zone is 2688 kilometers away from land and human civilization. Americans and Russians let their satellites and space stations fall from the sky here because it is so wonderfully lonely. Not a bad place during a global health crisis. But the circumnavigators are closer than seldom.

The weak winds pushed the best ten boats together up to 700 kilometers, this regatta around the world has never been so close. On Friday morning Boris Herrmann even passed the French fur seal Jean Le Cam. Third halfway through, “I would never have dreamed of that,” cheered 39-year-old Hermann. But meanwhile the first German has fallen behind at the Vendée Globe. The German-French Isabelle Joschke continues her amazing journey and is in fifth place.

33 skippers started in France on November 8th, six had to give up because the oceans are merciless and the rules are tough: they have to cover over 45,000 kilometers alone, without stopping and without outside help. If the conditions are favorable, the newest ships can fly over the water, half of the boats have hydrofoils on the left and right of the hull, as far as the theory goes. But mostly either the winds stayed away or storms whipped the waves to walls as high as houses; so the favorites could not yet play their advantage.

The British Samantha Davies apparently collided with a whale

The top performers in particular seem to have to pay tribute to their pace: Briton Alex Thomson, who led the field across the Atlantic, had to give up early after crashing his boat through heavy storms. The Frenchman Kevin Escoffier, in third place, lost his ship in the waves off the Cape of Good Hope, his competitor Jean Le Cam found him on a life raft in the water after twelve hours. British woman Samantha Davies dragged herself to Cape Town after apparently colliding with a whale. Nicolas Troussel (broken mast) and Sebastien Simon (wing and rudder damaged) also had to cancel their sails.

Usually only half of the boats make it to the finish line, as the past has shown. This is another reason why Herrmann is cautious: “I don’t want to make a major mistake at the moment,” is his strategy. “Certainly there is wear and tear that I can’t see yet,” believes Herrmann, but at the moment the full potential of his Seaexplorer can be exploited.

After the last weak winds, the field slips behind the record run four years ago when it was around the world in 74 days. The arrival is planned for the end of January this time. However, like most of them, Herrmann only has provisions for 80 days on board. “If there’s always something left, I can get through another ten days,” he calculates.

On the high seas alone, the head becomes an echo chamber

He “had to fight hard” with loneliness, reported Herrmann in one of his weekly video channels before Christmas. For the festival he hung up a chain of lights and played his family’s voice messages. “That was really nice,” says Herrmann in his YouTube diary, “I also had to cry a little”.

Alone on the high seas, the head becomes an echo chamber in which feelings intensify because you cannot share your experiences with anyone. Herrmann is also concerned: “I still have to learn to deal with everything myself.” Broadcasting on all channels, that seems to be his recipe against loneliness. He’s even set up a WhatsApp group with the other sailors, in which he most recently persuaded a rival not to give up. “That brings us together,” says Herrmann.

And so the Vendée Globe experiences a race in which the competitors are more connected than seldom and in which the outsiders surprise. Like the two-time Paralympics winner Damien Seguin, who controls his apparently technically inferior ship with just one hand and keeps up with the leaders. Or his sponsor Jean Le Cam, who is 61 years old after all. The Breton skipper has just received a medal from the French Minister for Maritime Affairs for his spectacular rescue operation off the Cape of Good Hope. He is in a head-to-head race with Boris Herrmann.

But in front of the field lies Cape Horn, a rock massif that protrudes into the water like the tail of a scorpion. The leaders should achieve it in just over a week. Le Cam knows how dangerous it is here: he was fighting for his life in this area when he capsized his ship twelve years ago until a competitor pulled him out of the water. Boris Herrmann believes that safer, warmer seas await after Cape Horn. He says, “Let’s stand these seven days to come.”