D+1 • October 26, 2015
Edmond de Rothschild Abandon in the IMOCA class
Leaders of the more westerly group of the IMOCA fleet of the Transat Jacques Vabre, Sébastien Josse and Charles Caudrelier have confirmed they have abandoned the race. They are the second of the 20 IMOCA 60s which started Sunday from Le Havre to retire. The duo made the difficult choice which was dictated by good seamanship and their aim to bring the newest Gitana back to port safely.
The duo are in good health and will return the new IMOCA 60 Edmond de Rothschild to their home base in Lorient where they are expected to arrive late tomorrow afternoon.
At 1900hrs this Monday afternoon the Edmond de Rothschild co-skippers contacted Cyril Dardashti, the manager of the Gitana team, to say they would like to retire from the race which is heading to Itajaí, Brasil.
Sébastien Josse explained the reasons:
“Since the afternoon we had a series of incidents aboard Edmond de Rothschild. Taken individually these problems are quite minor and if we had better weather we could probably put them right. But all added up to one another and given the weather conditions we see these incidents as potentially endangering us and the boat. The weather files show more than 40kts of wind at times and seven metre seas. Charles and I consider it would not be responsible to carry on in these conditions. The boat was only launched two and a half months ago, and despite all the work which was done by the Gitana team to optimises and be ready is so short a time, these are problems associated with a recently launched boat. The decision to abandon was a very hard one but we do not want to jeopardise more than a year of hard work. The boat was designed for the Vendée Globe and that remains the major objective of the team. It is hard to retire but we must not lose sight of that as the goal.”
www.transat-jacques-vabre.com
|
