As the leading two boats in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world yacht race head towards the Bay of Biscay, there is one thing that Alex Thomson fears more than anything: UFOs. Nothing to do with ET, these are the unidentified floating objects that a sailor must beware.
Thomson, who hopes to become the first British winner of the race when it finishes on Thursday, has set a blistering pace in the past few days, breaking the record for distance travelled in 24 hours between Sunday and yesterday morning.
Last night he was only 74 miles behind Armel Le Cléac’h of France with 800 miles left but the Gosport-based sailor knows that contact with an unidentified floating object could end his race in the cruellest way.
The Vendée, known as the Everest of the seas, has high attrition rates. Of the 166 boats to start the four-yearly race since it began in 1989, 78 have abandoned the attempt. Three sailors have died. When Thomson first attempted a round-the-world race, in 1999, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston wrote valuable advice on the hull of his boat: “To finish first, first you must finish.”
Twenty-nine boats started the present race from Les Sables d’Olonne in France on November 6 but 11 have withdrawn after suffering damage. In five of those cases it was from contact with an unidentified floating object, possibly a sea mammal or large piece of flotsam but often assumed to be a container that fell from a cargo ship because of bad weather, inadequate strapping-down or over-stacking.
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The World Shipping Council estimates that an average of 1,679 containers are lost at sea each year, a tiny percentage of the 160 million containers that cross the oceans annually, but still deadly when hit at speed.
There is little that a solo sailor, snatching sleep in 20-minute chunks, can do to avoid a collision. Many UFOs are semi-submerged or show only just above the surface of the water. Assuming that a container is relatively watertight, the air inside will prevent it from sinking for several weeks.
A floating container put paid to Dame Ellen MacArthur’s attempt to win the Vendée in 2000-01. She was 79 miles behind Michel Desjoyeaux with ten days left when she hit a UFO and broke her daggerboard and a rudder. MacArthur made repairs but ended up finishing 24 hours behind Desjoyeaux. “Alex must remember: it’s not over till it’s over,” she said.
Thomson, 42, is much closer to the finish than MacArthur was, but the example of another British sailor will be at the back of his mind. In 2005, when only 53 miles from port, Mike Golding suddenly lost his keel, although he had not hit anything. He had to limp home at 2.5 knots to secure third place.
Thomson has survived and suffered from many collisions himself. His attempt to win the Vendée in 2008 ended after six days when he sustained a cracked hull. While heading down the Atlantic at the start of this race he lost his starboard foil after hitting a submerged object but was able to continue.
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Similarly, he came third in the 2012-13 race despite needing to make repairs to a damaged rudder and hydro-generator. As he nears the finish, though, any boat-slowing contact could end his hopes of victory.