Mike Golding Yacht Racing (Photo by Lloyd Images)
The breakaway trio, Safran, Mike Golding Yacht Racing and Groupe Bel continue to profit from the excellent conditions through Sunday, all seeing the speed readouts peaking over 20 knots for periods as the they relish wind, sun and high speeds.
Their Sunday has been a time to re-group, catch up on repairs but most of all simply making sure the pace does not drop off.
As the distance remaining of the 4730 miles course from Le Havre to Costa Rica counted down under 3000 today, Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier’s Safran has continued to be a little faster than her pursuers, opening up a lead of 53.7 miles on the British-Spanish duo on Mike Golding Yacht Racing, whilst Kito de Pavant and Francois Gabart is just a little more than 12 miles behind.
The threesome are sprinting south with a cushion of 134 miles back to the British crew on Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel, and the best part of 300 miles ahead of the best of the southern group, Foncia. Michel Desjoyeaux and Jeremie Beyou lie eighth.
Golding, pointing out that Safran was still no more than three hours ahead of him, remarked that he felt the three runaways have themselves a ‘glamour hand’, but that there are no guarantees. The current routings today sees a more northerly course still paying off, with a much more southerly option still bringing that southerly groups in 200 miles behind the leading trio as they enter the Caribbean Sea, but the weather predictions further down the track are changing all the time.
For all that IMOCA Open 60 skippers usually have just about everything paced by or matched to their powerfully computed data collection and analysis, such have been the effects of the recent storms that several are reduced to first principles, setting sail area by what they see with their eyes, judging wind speed and sea state, rather than being able to take the real and predicted windspeeds off the computer and match them to their known sail cross-over charts. Golding today said that his speedo was simply how they are doing against their rivals: “We are doing our best to hold on to Safran,” said Golding, “But we are struggling a bit in terms of just knowing where we are, particularly going downhill. We kind of forget how reliant we are on our systems to give us advice on our sail plans and all that, and now here we are just trying to judge whether we have enough or not. Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong. It is quite hard to gauge it, and to some extent we are using them to measure it, if they are faster we push harder…and if they are lower…..well we push even harder!”
For Sam Davies and Sidney Gavignet on 11th placed Artemis, they have been getting towards the end of their long jobs list, one which has left them exhausted and which Gavignet said this morning has cost them many miles, not least 20 hours or so trying to sort out their mainsail problems.
Quotes:
Mike Golding, GBR, (Mike Golding Yacht Racing):
“ We always sort of had a game plan for this race, where we wanted to be at a certain time and place in the racecourse, and so we are very happy with where we are. We don’t like that Safran has pulled away a little bit overnight, but that is just one of those things, but in real terms she is just three hours in front of us and really that is not so bad.”
“What we want to do is make sure we are in a good, attacking position going to the Caribbean Sea which will present some different options to make an attack on Safran. I certainly think we can, and I certainly think there may even be some conditions down the race course which could favour our boat, and maybe have a little bit of an edge.
I think there is some opportunities for compression in the future, but the reality is that we have been dealt a glamour hand, us three boats, Bel, Safran and Mike Golding Yacht Racing, it does look like if the gate does not exactly close behind us, it does make it quite hard for them to keep up, because of the way that the weather is closing the door behind us, but as near as dammit.”
Marc Guillemot (FRA) Safran:
“I would like it to be a bit calmer for the last part of the race: we must meantime build a bigger distance from Kito de Pavant and Mike Golding. We have to remain on guard because they are two excellent competitors! We haven’t find a solution for the mainsail but we have decided to continue the race with this little problem and maybe find a solution near the Antilles. The weather conditions are pretty good but we are still wet : we are almost all the time under the cuddy : on the boat it’s like being next to a big geyser…Actually we’re going faster : I think that we could arrive to Puerto Limon at the end of next week.”
Charles Caudrelier Bénac (FRA), Safran:
“It is not yet the trade winds, but they’re not far off. Tomorrow, we should be in them. I must admit that Marc and I are both looking forward to getting some fresh air outside on the deck without getting completely soaked.”
“We had one particularly tricky moment on Thursday night, which really stood out. The leeward rudder kicked up and the boat swung around into the direction of the wind, with the mainsail flapping. It was torn about 50 centimetres along the leech. It was not easy fixing the rudder back with tons of water crashing over the deck, but we managed to get the repair done quickly.” “As we’re sailing downwind, the tear isn’t really having any effect. What counts for the moment is extending our lead if possible. We’re not even halfway through the race yet and everyone knows that the end of the voyage in the Gulf of Mexico can be very difficult to predict”.
“We knew our route was going to be tough. We never did anything silly and when the emergency beacon was triggered on BT, that was a particularly difficult time for us. But this route was clearly the fastest, and it was the only way to go. We made a strategic choice remaining fully confident in our boat,”
“We’re already looking at where to go between all the islands. We’ve got an idea in the back of our mind, but I can’t tell you anything more. I can just say that we’re going to have to gybe and then after that, it should almost be a straight run.”
The lightweight, radical chined Safran is clearly in her stride, an IMOCA Open 60 widely admired by the peers and rivals of skipper Marc Guillemot since her launch, making a further 10 miles on Golding and Javier Sanso since yesterday morning, but it is pleasing to see three skippers who no one would deny a measure of good fortune to any of them, spearheading the vanguard as they streak south towards the Caribbean.
Guillemot was the peoples’ humanitarian hero of the Vendée Globe, struggling home to a great third making the final 1000 miles with no keel, after having bravely stood by during the rescue of his badly injured friend Yann Elies.
Golding was cruelly robbed of the Vendée race lead when his mast tumbled in the South Indian Ocean in a 65 knot squall and few will forget the emotional images of Bel’s tough guy Kito de Pavant in pieces after his race ended so suddenly, less than 48 hours in.
All three leading crews have shown the guts, experience and seamanship to get the balance right on the northerly routing and today can enjoy the fruits of their endeavours, even if they go on to prove transient.
Safran, peaking at 22 knots on this morning’s early Sunday schedule, now has 51 miles over Mike Golding and Javier Sanso and has been consistently a knot or so quicker. The British boat in turn had stretched on Groupe Bel but by a smaller margin.
Safran’s Charles Caudrelier Bénac reported excellent conditions this morning, anticipating getting a gennaker up later in the day, racing in around 20 knots of breeze.
Alex Thomson (GBR) Hugo Boss:
“We were near as dammit beam reaching, about 12 knots, and the sea was getting pretty enormous, I was sat at the nav station, Ross was sat in the cuddy, I can only describe it as if you can imagine being, doing 12 knots if you imagine the boat suddenly being hit by a bulldozer. We basically got knocked down by a breaking wave. I got thrown across the boat, I did not know what the hell was going on, bashed my head, it was pretty sacry, I have never experienced anything like it to be honest, and unfortunately because of that episode, with the boat basically being picked up and pushed sideways it broke our daggerboard.”
Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel have lost some miles on Hugo Boss, some of which Thomson attributed this morning to the after effects of something close to a knock down when their IMOCA Open 60 was bodily picked up and thrown by a huge wave. The British skipper was flung across the cabin from the nav station and a daggerboard was smashed. Since they have swapped boards and the duo are in good shape, he confirmed racing at 100% to regain the distance lost to the leading trio.
Alex Thompson On Hugo Boss (Photo by DR)
In fifth Yves Parlier and Pachi Rivero have made steady progress in the north, whilst Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nelias on Veolia Environnement remain ahead of Aviva despite their pit-stop in the Azores yesterday afternoon which cost them about 150 miles.
Of the easterly group Michel Desjoyeaux and Jeremie Beyou on Foncia have recovered 40 miles on the leaders since yesterday as they sail a converging course across the high pressure ridge to break into same weather pattern as the leading trio.
Quotes
Charles Caudrelier Bénac (FRA), Safran:
“It’s going fast and the sea is flat. It is very pleasant. The wind is not too strong, about 20 knots, and we hop to be under spinnaker before the end of the day. We need to get things dry. Everything is wet. We spent much of yesterday going over the boat.
In my opinion the guys in the south will be able to get into the same system as us but they should not succeed in getting past us, except if we break something of course.
In the north it is similar, and so we do think the battle should be between us, Mike Golding and the Laughing Cow. But, that’s OK just now, we are a long way from the finish, we have not even done half the course. It was certainly tough the way we went. Half of the boats had problems, and it would not surprise me.”
Brit Air (Photo by Marcel Mochet)
A time for reflection and rest in France, home of the Transat Jacques Vabre, Armistice Day was certainly not observed by the malicious Atlantic weather systems into which the IMOCA Open 60′s and Multi 50 fleets were pounding over the course of the fourth day of this race from Le Havre to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica.
Relief should come by the weekend, and forecasters promise some occasional respite. Ominously, perhaps, the worst effect of the systems is now due during Friday, the 13th, but as the IMOCA Open 60 fleet work their way SW towards the Azores some skippers were counting down the hours to escape from the miserable conditions, and to see how their strategies play out.
The divide between the boats in the north and the south has become even more pronounced during the middle part of today, with Michel Desjoyeaux and Jérémie Beyou on Foncia now more than 400 miles south and east of their rivals in the north.
British duo Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel on Hugo Boss may have been feeling slightly exposed – lonely even – on their more extreme northerly course. No sooner had a slightly rueful Thomson admitted, early this morning, that his preference, in hindsight, would have been to be in closer touch to the group of boats just to his south, than up popped 1876 only 22 miles astern.
The Spanish IMOCA Open 60, with French co-skipper Yves Parlier – double winner of this biennial race – had taken the option to go for 24 hours in ‘stealth’ mode during which their position and progress is not published – as they hiked north on to a routing which has gained
considerable credence over the last 24 hours.
The equation under scrutiny now is whether to endure much tougher, windier conditions for a short period in the north to get to the preferred wind shift first, or to stay – more prudently – south and profit that way.
Lying seventh and eighth respectively with deficits of 61 and 86 miles, on this afternoon’s schedule Hugo Boss and 1876 were the quickest boats in the fleet this afternoon, by margin of between two and four knots.
After taking the lead on the pre-dawn schedule yesterday, Seb Josse and Jeff Curzon on BT continue to hold on in the IMOCA Open 60 class, with a margin of just under 15 miles to maintain a controlling grip on the northerly group, perhaps with the exception of Hugo Boss. During the late afternoon BT, Mike Golding Yacht Racing and Groupe Bel were the first to tack SW.
Britain’s Mike Golding, along with Spanish co-skipper Javier Sanso, retains fourth place with sistership Aviva of Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson just less than five miles behind, but still making NW this afternoon.
After arriving in Concearneau just after lunch time this afternoon Armel Le Cléac’h and Nicolas Troussel spent the afternoon assessing the repair options to their mainsail mast-track and the forecasted weather conditions, looking their options for a possible return to the race course.
Due to the combination of predicted storms in the Bay of Biscay, their deficit on the front of the fleet, and their desire not to compromise their IMOCA Open 60 in any way, the BritAir duo, in agreement with their team, decided the prudent option was to retire from the race.
Alex Thomson (GBR), skipper Hugo Boss:
“I had a phone call half an hour ago to say that Estrella have popped up out of her stealth mission and she is 20 miles behind us here in the north. I haven’t had a chance to plot the position yet, but if Yves Parlier – one of the great legends of solo sailing - has decided
to come this way then it obviously means we’re going the right way! Or we hope it does anyway…..”
Javier Sanso (ESP), co-skipper Mike Golding Yacht Racing:
““It is going well, we are making some progress down south. We have 3 reefs and a staysail, bouncing up and down, like in a washing machine. It is incredibly wet on deck and a very bumpy. It is miserable, cold and wet. But finally we think that in the next 40 hours we should be out of it….I hope.”
“The pilots and the electronics are still giving us some problems. We are back like the old days with a piece of wool! But in some ways we are getting used to it, but it is very tiring and we have done a lot of hand steering. It is not good in this weather to have to suddenly get on deck to hand steer because the pilot has crashed. And that eats up the energy to suddenly run from inside to hand steer. So we are always ready to jump outside, it has been very, very, very tiring for Mike and I.”
“ It is a good place. We are happy with that just now and will see what happens as we work to get down to the high pressure in the south.”
Vincent Riou (FRA), co-skipper Akena Veranda:
“The first days have been wet, but the conditions are not so difficult for the moment. We have taken the comfortable option, towards the south, and so we don’t have any concerns for the boat. We chose the middle, intermediate road. The conditions so far remain OK, and with
Arnaud we have no worries, we have had good rest, and he is a guy who
is very easy to get along with.”
Marc Guillemot (FRA), Safran:
“It’s pretty brutal. It is crash, crash, crash. Since the end of the night the seas have got worse and the winds have got right up with some big gusts. But it is good to have a sailor like Charles on board. In conditions like these it is hard in the manoeuvres but together we manage. As for our options, well this is what we chose and we’d still rather be here.”
Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) Foncia:
“All is well. This beating in the Atlantic was expected, and it was known that the strategies would develop. We will see what happens. Perhaps with Jérémie we have been too cautious. I did think that those closer to the depression would have had more difficulties today.”
“As for Yves Parlier I did not really consider that he would have chosen such an extreme option. So now, we will need to be patient. It is in the long run that we will all be able to make the assessment.”
Boats Line Up At Le Havre Docks For Start Of Transat Jacques Vabre (Photo by Mochet Marcel)
For some it’s the first big chance to restore pride and confidence after the brutal last edition of the Vendée Globe, to others it is simply the next big challenge on the competition itinerary, but the 2009 edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre, which starts from Le Havre this weekend has drawn a remarkably strong fleet of 14 IMOCA Open 60′s and a fleet of six Multi50 class multihulls which includes three brand new build boats.
With two days to go before the start the atmosphere, if anything, is slightly restrained. The pressures of the global economic downturn has perhaps eliminated some of the adventurers and those who might normally be taking their first steps on the ladder with this biennial classic race.
That means that the IMOCA Open 60 fleet, seven months after the finish of the Vendée Globe, has been pared back to serious teams which are all well funded, highly professional and prepared to approximately the same high level. Meeting their respective international press contingents today both Michel Desjoyeaux, who is out to defend his win in the 2007 edition of this race, and Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson individually observed that the fleet of IMOCA Open 60′s for this race contains neither weak boats, nor weak crews.
The area around the Paul Vatine basin where the huge crowds will gather this weekend to send off the fleet, has all been substantially redeveloped, part of Le Havre’s ongoing regeneration. The huge warehouses on the east side of the dock now contain dozens of smart restaurants and shops, a supermarket and a cinema where today more than 500 local schoolchildren were given a colourful insight into ocean racing and the Transat Jacques Vabre race itself by 14 of the race skippers.
Eight of the 28 IMOCA Open 60 skippers here did not finish their Vendée Globe, from the unfortunate Kito de Pavant (Groupe Bel), Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) and Marc Thiercelin (DCNS) who were among the victims of the first big storm, Jérémie Beyou (who races on Foncia with Michel Desjoyeaux) to Sebastien Josse (BT), Vincent Riou (PRB)now Akena Verandas with Arnaud Boissieres), Mike Golding (Ecover, now Mike Golding Yacht Racing) and Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) who was the last who was soloist who was forced to retire whilst lying second. All are back here, racing this new course to Puerto Limon,Costa Rica. “The whole fleet is quite homogeneous here, quite the same, and there are no bad boats and also no bad crews, so it will be much more difficult.” Cautions Foncia skipper Desjoyeaux, who won the 2007 Transat Jacques Vabre with co-skipper Manu Le Borgne.
“The fleet is going to be tough, for sure. There just are no bad boats. There are no older boats here. But also, looking at the Multi 50 class, that looks exciting and very much more achievable in many ways.” Says Alex Thomson, skipper of one of the four British boats, Hugo Boss, “For us this race is going to depend on what the weather does. If we get some good reaching conditions then we could do well, with some good breeze but if there is a lot of VMG running then we could struggle”.
French sailing legend Yves Parlier returns to the IMOCA Open 60 fleet, sailing on the Spanish flagged 1876 partnering Spain’s Pacchi Rivero. Parlier is a past winner, in 1997 with the late Eric Tabarly, which he still describes as the highlight of his sailing career, and last competed in 1999 with Ellen MacArthur.
British female skippers Sam Davies and Dee Caffari are back in the fray too. Davies is sailing Artemis with Sidney Gavignet, while Caffari is joined on Aviva by Brian Thompson whose third Transat Jacques Vabre this is. While Caffari’s confidence after the Vendée Globe and an all girl Round Britain record attempt on Aviva in the summer, is at all time high, Davies, along with Gavignet is just getting to grips with the very powerful Rogers designed Artemis.
“The level is just so high that it is very hard to judge how we might do. I really just want to finish feeling proud of ourselves and the course we have taken, the way we have sailed. So much will be down to the weather and who does what, but I want to feel we have sailed as close to 100% as we can.” Says Davies, “Really, my mission is just to keep learning the Artemis and to continue the evolution of the boat.”
Dee Caffari, sailing Aviva, is looking to her and Brian Thompson’s combined experience and a boat she now knows very well, to bring them a strong result: “We are both really up for it. Traditionally perhaps I have always been the conservative one, but now, after sailing with the girls in the summer, I have so much more confidence and in this final race with the sponsor I really want to do well. It would be a good thing for the future.”
