French sailor rescued in Golden Globe Race
Third southern ocean rescue as french sailor dismasted
A third competitor in the 2018 Golden Globe solo race was rescued from the Southern Ocean in October. French sailor Loïc Lepage set off his EPIRB on 20 October when his Nicholson 32 Lalaland was dismasted 670 miles south-west of Perth and began taking large amounts of water.
Lepage, 62, who had joined the event’s Chichester class after making a repair stop in Cape Town, managed to cut away his rigging.
An Royal Australian Air Force search and rescue plane located him and a Japanese bulk carrier, Shiosai, diverted to Lepage’s position, as did another yachtsman, Francis Tolan, who is making a solo circumnavigation in his Beneteau Oceanis 43, Alizes II.
Following Lepage’s evacuation to the Japanese ship, his tracker ceased transmitting and it is assumed the yacht sank.
At the same time, Britain’s Susie Goodall,
29, lying in 4th place, survived a “horrific” storm 250 miles south-west of Australia, during which her Rustler 36, DHL Starlight, was knocked down three times. “The storm really kicked in between 9pm and 9am. I had 70 knot winds and 13m seas,” she reported. “They were nasty… practically vertical, with breaking crests. I don’t know how we got through it. My self-steering broke and I had to hand-steer for seven hours. We suffered several knockdowns and I feared that we might get rolled at any time.”
She reported that her vane steering was “working but not very well. It will only hold a course on a beam reach, so I am having to hand steer at the moment.”
Goodall was expected to reach the halfway stage of the race, a rendezvous gate off Hobart, in early November.
This retro race, only eligible to longkeeled yachts and without modern means of communication, has been whittled of competitors following gear failure and capsizes. Ten of the original 18 starters are now out of the race. In September, Indian skipper Abhilash Tomy and Irishman Gregor Mcguckin were rescued from the Southern Indian Ocean.
At the front of the fleet, meanwhile, veteran solo racer Jean-luc Van Den Heede passed Hobart in early October more than 1,600 miles ahead of the next placed rival, Dutch sailor Mark Slats. The highly experienced skipper, 73, veteran of the Vendée Globe Race, and holder of the solo non-stop ‘wrong way’ round the world record, reached the halfway point 97 days after leaving Les Sables d’olonne in June.
His average speed to date is 5.2 knots. To put that in modern context, Armel Le Cléac’h completed and won the 2016/7 Vendée Globe in 74 days, at an average speed of 13.7 knots.