Jean-Luc Van den Heede, the 73-years young French sailor leading the Golden Globe Race in his Rustler 36 yacht Matmut, rounded Cape Horn last night and is heading north east into the Atlantic at 7.5 knots. 

Matmut suffered damage to her rigging when the yacht was pitchpoled 3-weeks ago and organisers have been concerned about the yacht’s mast being able to stay up in the sort of conditions associated with rounding the horn. The Frenchman climbed aloft no fewer than five times to make repairs and weathered a couple of major storms, but has to slow down whenever the wind is forward of the beam to minimise the slamming effect on the rig when heading into the waves. This will undoubtedly slow his progress on the final 6,800 miles back up the Atlantic to the finish line at les Sables d’Olonne.

Matmut slowing down gives Mark Slats a chance to catch him and potentially even to overtake. But the Dutchman, 1390nM behind Jean-Luc needs to sail 20% faster to be able to do that. In the last week he gained around 90 miles on Matmut. If he catches up then both lead boats could finish together during the first or second week of February.

Slats has to sail 20% faster to catch leader Jean-Luc

Earlier this week the news was that 3rd placed Estonian Uku Randmaa aboard One and All, had dropped a further 200 miles behind Matmut and seen Britain’s Sue Goodall in 4th, in her Rustler 36 DHL Express, gain a further 60 miles on him. Randmaa had dived overboard to clean the barnacles from the bottom of his yacht and had cleared 85% of the growth when he spotted a shark circling the boat. He made a hasty retreat back onboard – and has not been back in the water since!

Barnacles are also responsible for the sluggish performance of Tapio Lehtinen’s Finnish Gaia 36 Asteria back in 6th place. He is currently south of New Zealand’s southern tip and reported “BAD POINTING ABILITY DUE 2 BARNACLES”.

Jean-Luc’s antifoul apparently contains a large amount of curry powder, which some are citing as a reason he is still sailing at such good speeds. Sailors have been asking organiser Don McIntyre which brand of curry powder is used on Matmut but so far no one knows the brand… it’ll be a massive favourite as and when the details are divulged!

American/Hungarian Istvan Kopar sailing the Tradewind 35 Puffin in 5th place, had been making up ground on Susie Goodall, before clipping the northwest corner of the Southern Ocean NO-GO Zone. The first incursion between 03:00 and 03:20 UTC yesterday was undoubtedly caused by a sudden change of wind direction, but then he did it again between 06:00 and 09:00 spending a total time of 3 hours 20 minutes in the orange zone. That has led to a 6hour 40-minute time penalty being added to the 24-hour penalty picked up when he stopped in the Cape Verde Islands to repair his self-steering and used his satellite phone. Kopar also has the disadvantage of not having a serviceable SSB radio to pick up an accurate time signal (essential for celestial navigation) or weather forecasts.

The other big losers this past week are Australian Mark Sinclair and Russia’s Igor Zaretskiy. Unlike Igor, Mark is clearly enjoying this global cruise so much that having passed 330 miles south of Cape Leeuwin now appears to be heading towards his home port of Adelaide to say ‘hi’ to family and friends and re-enact Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s impromptu rendezvous 50 years before with the ship Kooringa, which passed on his position to Lloyds of London – providing the first news of Suhaili’s progress for more than 2 months back in 1968. But earlier in the week Sinclair reported he was down to 37 litres of drinking water. Unless he can catch rain he is likely to be forced to stop at Hobart and take on fresh supplies, which will relegate him to the Chichester Class.

Zaretskiy may well be forced to do the same. His Endurance 35 Esmeralda is reportedly covered in barnacles and nursing a broken forestay secured at the top of the mast with temporary lashings. This might explain why Esmeralda was sailing at just 0.4knot today and has lost a further 600 miles on Matmut’s lead during the past week.

Of the seventeen solo sailors that set out from Les Sables d’Olonne on July 1st just 8 remain in the race.  They have been a sea for 145 days and Jean-Luc has covered 20,000 miles, averaging 5.75 knots or 138 miles per day.  This compares to the 4.02 knots averaged by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston for the whole circumnavigation during the inaugual Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968/9 when he became the first to sail solo non-stop around the Globe. Van Den Heede’s nearest rival is Dutchman Mark Slats sailing another Rustler 36 – Ohpen Maverick – currently trailing the Frenchman by 1,350 miles.