With Tanguy De Lamotte (Initiatives Cœur) forecast to arrive on the morning of Sunday February 17 and the last man, Alessandro Di Benedetto (Team Plastique), now saying he will be back on Thursday, February 21, this Vendée Globe is due to be the closest in the race’s 24-year history. It was the closest at the front between the top two finishers and it should be the most compact fleet ever, with easily the smallest number of days between first and last.
The last skipper, Norbert Sedlacek (AUT), in 2008-9 finished more than 42 days after the winner Michel Desjoyeaux; in 2004-05 the gap between the winner, Vincent Riou, and the last skipper, Karen Leibovici was almost 39 days; in 2000-01, the gap between the winner, Desjoyeaux and Pasquale de Gregorio (ITA), was almost 65 days; in 1996-97, the gap between the winner, Christophe Auguin, and Catherine Chabaud was 34 days; in 1992-93, the gap between the winner, Alain Gautier and Jean-Yves Hasselin, was 43 days; and in 1989-90, the gap between the winner, Titouan Lamazou, and Jean-François Coste was 53 days. This time Alessandro Di Benedetto (Team Plastique) should finish 25 days after the winner Francois Gabart.
Di Benedetto is 825 miles south of The Azores. Hampered by his broken rib and the absence of his two large downwind sails; the gennaker and the spinnaker, which he has been doing without since the beginning of the South Atlantic, Di Benedetto said he expected to be back on Thursday February 21. That would mean a race time of 103 days. Di Benedetto’s robust boat, built in 1998, is about to complete it’s fourth successive Vendée Globe. His predicted time would be under the 105 days that Arnaud Bossieres (Akenas Verandas 2008-09) managed in this Finot-Conq designed boat in the previous edition and that Thomas Coville (Sodebo, 2000-01) set in the boat’s first Vendée Globe. Sébastien Josse (VMI, 2004-05) got the boat round in 93 days, when finishing fifth in the 2004-05 edition.
Di Benedetto has the 105-day mark in mind, but said yesterday that it is not his priority. “No, it’s not very important, because I was not thinking this before the start, I was thinking I’d make it in 140 days,” Di Benedetto said. “The most important thing was to finish and that’s still the most important thing. The 105 days is just a time, a reference that I know Thomas Coville and Arnaud Bossieres did and it’s a good time with this boat. So, I will try to make the same time. But the most important thing is to finish with the boat and myself in good condition.”
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