The IRC showdown in the 8th RORC Transatlantic Race is getting closer: British-German "Rosalba" trio at the finish line this weekend

The battle for the "Line Honours" for the fastest multihulls and monohulls in the 8th RORC Transatlantic Race has long since been decided in favour of Giovanni Soldini's Multi 70 "Maserati" and the 100-foot maxi "Comanche" skippered by Mitch Booth. However, the struggle for the overall IRC victory continues. On the eleventh day at sea, it was once again the "Comanche", which had already arrived at the finish harbour, that held the lead in the interim classification. However, the lead over Maximilian Klink's second-placed Botin 52 Custom "Caro" has started to shrink again. With around 350 nautical miles to the finish, the "Caro" crew still had nine hours to make up in the theoretical calculation.

The Volvo Open 70 "L4 Trifork", which came third in the overall IRC standings on Tuesday, has already arrived in the Caribbean port of destination, meaning that it can no longer knock "Comanche" off the overall IRC throne. Others, however, could very well still succeed. For example, the smallest boat in the fleet: the JPK 10.10 "Jangada" is still in a promising fifth place in the IRC Handicup ranking. With a good 1100 nautical miles to the finish, her two-handed crew still had a third of the course ahead of them on Tuesday. The wait for the decision in the battle for overall IRC victory will therefore continue for a while yet.

The modified "L4 Trifork" with skipper Jens Dolmer and his crew completed the Transat in 9 days, 10 hours, 27 minutes and 58 seconds and crossed the finish line as the second monohull yacht behind "Comanche" and the best of the three Ocean Race boats. The crew received a warm welcome in the Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina and were also given a fitting reception by the "Line Honours" winners of the "Comanche" crew.

"L4 Trifork" navigator Aksel Magdahl said in the harbour: "This was not a typical transatlantic race. Normally as a fast boat you would go a bit north, find a front and pick up speed. In this race we seriously took a 90-degree turn to the north. Two days into the race we still had almost the same distance to the finish. It was aggressive, but there was no real alternative for us to the south. We sailed north of the low and it followed us as predicted. After the first low, things got really interesting. We knew before the start that a second low was coming and had a plan. But after the start we saw a third low approaching and wondered what to do with it. We decided to maintain our northerly position to catch the back of it. But the movement of this third low was difficult to predict. My worries were this: If we went south, we would get the wind from the front. If we went north, we would have very few options to go back down. Then the opportunity for a southern route opened up in the models, and we took it. We had a fair chance of getting 'Comanche'."

This last statement by Magdahl referred to the calculated IRC time. In the end, nothing came of it. The "L4 Trifork" crew finished 13.5 hours behind the fabulous "Comanche" time, which Magdahl paid a lot of respect to: "They have a great boat, an excellent navigator (editor: Will Oxley) and sail the boat well."

The British-German trio on the aged Imoca "Rosalba" has no chance of a top IRC placing. This did not dampen the good mood on board on the eleventh day at sea. The "Rosalba", which has moved up to 16th place in terms of time sailed, is in 19th place according to IRC calculations. Skipper Richard Tolkien sent this greeting from on board on Tuesday:

"We have had to deal with light winds from the north-east on 'Rosalba' over the last few days, which have slowed down our passage somewhat. However, the wind has shifted to the east overnight and increased to 15 knots. This allows us to sail a more direct course to Grenada - west-south-west. Our progress was also held up by the now repaired jibtop and a crack in the 220 square metre A3, which cannot be repaired at sea. So we are sailing with a few less horsepower! The weather information we download every day indicates an increase in wind, perhaps up to 20 knots on Thursday and Friday. That's good for speeding up our pace on the way to the finish! Otherwise, everything is good on board. We speak a lot of German and English!" Click here for the tracker and the intermediate results (please click!).