After a little more than 16 days at sea, the crew of Sodebo Ultim 3 have stopped their attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy on Monday, January 6.

While sailing between the Kerguelen Islands and Cape Leeuwin at over 30 knots, Thomas Coville and his six teammates lost their central rudder.

Very quickly, the crew slowed Team Sodebo for a first diagnosis. This damage no longer allows the boat to sail 100% of its capacity to try to break the Jules Verne Trophy record, so they decided to interrupt their attempt started on December 20 at 21:34.

Thomas Coville, Frédéric Denis, Pierre Leboucher, Léonard Legrand, Guillaume Pirouelle, Benjamin Schwartz and Nicolas Troussel have set a course north to get out of the ice area and are considering where to stop over for repairs.

Thomas Coville, said this morning: “There was no shock but we lost the rudder. With the crew, we are very organised and everything is fine for us. We cannot continue in record mode, and we do not think that we should engage in the Southern Seas without a central rudder. We’re at 25 knots and we’re heading north to try to escape a depression.

Sodebo Ultim 3 – Jules Verne Trophy record attempt – December 2024 – photo © Team Sodebo

We are orienting ourselves for a technical stopover in Australia to put on a new rudder. Engaging a U-turn of the world in record mode without the rudder is unfortunately not reasonable. The ship is in general condition generally and we were able to deal with that. We have built something incredible. The pace was high up to this point. We were content with what was being done, despite the sea state, which has been difficult in the past 24 hours.

“On land, the routing team and the entire Lorient team were also superb during this attempt. I would like to thank them for all the work done. We have succeeded in making our fans dream through this extraordinary adventure.

“This abandonment is, of course, a disappointment for all. But it’s great training and provides learning for the future of our team to meet the next challenges.”

by Team Sodebo