Do not blame the icebergs, but the Vendée Globe round the world race claimed another victim yesterday as Jonny Malbon on Artemis II became the sixteenth sailor from a field of 30 to abandon the race.

After 12,000 miles and 55 difficult days at sea, in his first solo race, Malbon, 35, was forced to retire because he was running out of glue and ideas about how to fix a metre-long tear in his mainsail. He was in twelfth place, and nearly 5,000 miles behind Michel Desjoyeaux, the leader, on Foncia, who should round Cape Horn today.

“I am absolutely devastated,” Malbon, from the Isle of Wight, said. “The thing with this is that I could carry on for a bit but it is only a matter of time - it is no longer if but when the mainsail will just disintegrate completely, so heading out past New Zealand back into the Southern Ocean is just not feasible. My heart is telling me to go on but my head is telling me I have to stop and in the end it is true. I have no choice.”

The rate of attrition in the race is close to the highest in its history. The weather in the Bay of Biscay and Southern Ocean has been more reminiscent of the earlier races. In the first race, in 1989-90, seven of 13 finished, in 1992-93 the figure was seven of 14, in 1996-97 only six of 16 came home and in 2000-01 it was 15 of 24.

The new boats, which were designed specifically for this race, have suffered. Artemis II, which is thought to be among the most powerful and which has the second widest beam (six metres), was the thirteenth of 20 new boats that have abandoned.

Dee Caffari, who is on Aviva in ninth place, is struggling with the same problem as Malbon. “I am so anxious about my mainsail all the time and it is stopping me pushing the boat a bit,” Dee said. “I am hugely worried about it. I have halfway around the world to go to keep it together. My latest plan is to paint it with epoxy resin, which seems to be working but I can only do it in patches because it makes the sail very stiff.

“And when you bend it, it breaks. I have to do this either until the end of the race or until everything runs out.”