Veolia Environnement suffers a collision

Second placed boat in the Vendee Globe runs over a whale, cracking her keelbox, but is continuing

Roland Jourdain’s Veolia Environnement team have reported that their second-placed French skipper hit a sea mammal early yesterday evening while some 800 miles off the Argentine coast.

After inspecting his boat, the keel and bulb do not seem to have been affected, but Jourdain found several cracks around the keel box and in the compartment at the foot of the mast bulkhead.

Jourdain was asleep in his bunk when he was woken up by a violent shock early yesterday evening. After shooting up on deck to get Veolia Environnement back on course after she had borne away off course suddenly, he noticed a patch of red around his boat. Since then Jourdain has continued under reduced sail in order to effect repairs

After assessing the situation with the boat's designers and her builders at CDK, Jourdain has set about making repairs. Fortunatley with the high encroaching over his position, coinditions are favourable for effecting a repair.

Jourdain later described the incident: “I was resting, when the boat broached. There wasn't any cracking sound, but the boat came to a standstill. I'd hit a sea mammal. I'm not sure what type it was exactly, but when I came outside to get the boat back on ourse, I saw a bit of the animal and the water was coloured red. The bulkhead at the foot of the mast is cracked to the point that if I did nothing, the mast would simply go through the hull. With my shore team, we're trying to find a way to spread out the load from the mast and what I can repair I shall  Yesterday was a day of preparation, between working out what I could do with the materials on board, sanding and filing. Then, last night I fixed the survival panel to the bulkhead at the foot of the mast with some sheets of carbon. I still have a lot of work to do. I've never seen a boat in this state. It's no longer a racing boat but a boatyard. It's better to laugh about it rather than cry, even if carbon particles aren't that funny. I'm feeling confident.  I'm lucky with my bad luck though: the seas are smooth and the temperature is climbing... When everything is dry, we'll be off again.  As for the whale, it was me, who invaded his territory, so I can't blame him.”