(Paris) The battle rages within the leading trio of the 10e edition of the Vendée Globe, with Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) new leader Tuesday evening ahead of Charlie Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance) and Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa).
Richomme, who had regained the lead at Dalin on Tuesday morning, lost it again at the 7 p.m. score.
Simon now has a short lead over Dalin and Richomme, who are close to each other, respectively 25.28 nautical miles and 25.33 from the new leader.
The trio, which is heading towards Point Némo, the point in the Pacific Ocean farthest from any land surface, has widened the gap on the rest of the fleet, the fourth, Nicolas Lunven (Holcim-PRB), pointing to 611 miles.
The race management took the decision to modify the Antarctic Exclusion Zone (AEZ) which allows skippers not to get closer to the icebergs.
In collaboration with experts who map icebergs, the ZEA was slightly moved north to the level of Point Némo for almost 60 miles. “The detections carried out by CLS by satellite allow us to make this decision,” explains Pierre Hays to the race director. It’s also a way of anticipating ice drift which could affect the end of the peloton.” This is the fifth modification to the ZEA since the start of the Vendée Globe.
Ranking
- Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil) 10,169 nautical miles from the finish
- Charlie Dalin (Macif Santé Prévoyance) 25.28 miles from the first
- Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkéa) at 25.33 miles
- Nicolas Lunven (Holcim-PRB) at 611.24 miles
- Thomas Ruyant (Vulnerable) at 618.96 miles
- Jérémie Beyou (Charal) at 631.52 miles
- Yannick Bestaven (Maître Coq V) at 763.63 miles
- Paul Meilhat (Biotherm) at 828.11 miles
- Boris Herrmann (Malizia-Seaexplorer) at 846.92 miles
- Sam Goodchild (Vulnerable) at 877.83 miles