VENDEE GLOBE JURY COMPENSATIONS CONFIRMS BESTAVEN AS LEADER

The international jury has decided the compensations to give to the sailors that were diverted by the organization to search for Escoffier, after his boat break in two.

A bit what it was expected except for Le Cam which seems to have more time than what he lost but the Juri also considered the extra fatigue and stress that he presumably had while searching and recovering Escoffier. In my opinion that is a bit arbitrary but understandable especially after the hero role that was attributed to him after the successful recovery.

The time compensation for Bestaven, 10 hours and 15 minutes, seems correct to me, it is according to what I had estimated and takes into consideration that he had to invert his course to go to the accident´s place.

The time compensation for Boris, 6 hours, seems to be in concordance with the time attributed to Bestaven taking into consideration that when the accident happened he was behind and sailed to the place (on the right direction) for about 3 to 4 hours and that explains de time difference to Bestaven.

The time compensation to LeCam, 16 hours 15 minutes, takes into consideration that at the time of the accident he was 30 miles behind Escoffier, sailing in the same course so he did not lose time till arriving at the local and that he was there for about 9,5 to 10 hours looking for and recovering Escoffier. It takes also into consideration the one to two hours that he lost to deliver Escoffier to the French frigate.

The lost time by Le Cam should have been something like 12 hours having had an extra compensation of about 4 hours for the extra fatigue that all this had eventually cost him.

Not contesting the time compensations, to make things clear, I believe that the Juri should make public all these calculations and the different factors that led to them and their ponderations. I hope that the organization will do that because it is important to have transparency on a race that was raced in real-time and that unfortunately, it is not anymore, with implications in what regards who is leading the race.

And regarding that, with  10 hours 15 minutes compensation and already ahead of Ruyant, Bestaven is leading the race with an advantage much bigger than the distance that separates him from Ruyant. That distance, at the speed they are racing on the last day would not be 14 miles but more than 170 nautical miles.

Boris that is now 7th with this time compensation will be 5th and Le Cam, if we take into consideration the average on the last 24 hours will maintain the 4th place but now closer to Dalin, being at about 100 nautical miles instead of 300. Even if we consider that the average speed that he made on the last day is below his average (12.6) and considering the average speed of the last week (15,5kt) he would still be behind Dalin for about 50 nautical miles.