Fig’Armor: Favourite wins the Figaro, a steep learning curve for Lake Constance sailors

Short but very intense: that’s how the second edition of the Fig’Armor went. Four solo sailors and nine two-man crews used the 260-nautical-mile race to and from Lorient in the Bay of Biscay to improve their skills, either alone or as a pair, to prepare for further events this season or – as in the case of Jens Meiser and Andreas Wittmann – to further develop their still-nascent Figaro career, to learn and to make progress. The favourites, Hugo Dhallenne and Chloé Le Bars on “Skipper Macif 2025”, won the double-handed classification in the demanding one-design class in 2 days, 6 minutes and 45 seconds.

Fig’Armor: Favourites succeed under pressure

Co-skipper Chloé Le Bars said in Lorient: “It was a thrilling battle with the ‘Faun’! After Groix, we wondered when they’d catch up to put us under pressure. We couldn’t afford to make any mistakes and had to stay focused to pull off some good manoeuvres. It’s always more complicated towards the end of a race, especially as the pace remained very high right up to the finish. Positioning yourself on the right side when you’ve got close pursuers is a task I’m not quite used to yet – Hugo helped me a lot with that!”

Click here for the tracking page, where you can find the finishing times for both the crews and the soloists.

Just 22 seconds (!) after the winners, Adrien Simon and Nicolas Troussel crossed the finish line on “Faun”. The two top crews battled it out in the Fig’Armor class in a thrilling race right to the very end. Just over 18 minutes behind the winners, the third crew to cross the line – Colombe Julia and Laure Galley, the only all-female crew – secured a place on the podium. This race once again demonstrated just how close the competition is in the high-performance Figaro Bénéteau 3 class. At the finish line, three-time Fig’Armor participant Hugo Dhallene offered a suggestion: “It would be brilliant if you could earn points towards next year’s championship in this race!”

The Fig’Armor experience: Last to cross the finish line, but third at one stage

For the first-time German participants, Jens Meiser and Andreas Wittmann, finishing ninth and last in the double-handed fleet was not what they had hoped for. But there is much more to this result than meets the eye – the sailing enthusiasts from Lake Constance crossed the Fig’Armor finish line just over two and a half hours behind the winners.

"For us, it was the most intense offshore race we’ve had so far." Jens Meiser

After a brief technical hiccup before the start, Jens Meiser and Andreas Wittmann got off to a good start. At one point, they had even managed to fight their way up to third place in the small but strong field. The good news for the Figaro fans from Germany: The manoeuvres went well, as did the teamwork. The only thing missing was a bit of speed compared with France’s Figaro professionals.

Andreas Meiser, who came across a Figaro Bénéteau rather by chance in December 2024, chartered it in 2025 and has been building on his skills and experience this year with various co-skippers – such as on the current Fig’Armor with his long-standing sailing friend Andreas Wittmann – said after the gruelling race in the Bay of Biscay: “We’d actually gone into the race feeling very confident. Andreas and I worked brilliantly together on board right from the start. But at first, we simply couldn’t get the boat up to speed.”

First a technical setback, then a masterstroke

Tactically, the race had got off to a surprising start for Meiser and Wittmann: the fleet headed port-side towards Île de Groix. The German duo’s planned route, however, had clearly favoured the other side. Meiser and Wittmann decided against their own route and opted for a simple racing rule: “Stick to the fleet – stay with the fleet.”

When the “Yuman”, with François Jambou and Pascal Fievet on board, later turned round and headed back towards the coast, the picture began to change. The “Chipmunk” (GER 20) increasingly found its own rhythm and was better able to keep up with the pace of the competition. The first real test of navigational skills came just before Penmarc’h. The French sailors, who knew the waters well, ventured deep into the challenging rocky area on their course. Meiser and Wittmann followed – guided by the tracks of the leading Figaros, but having to navigate with a correspondingly high level of concentration.

At that point, the “Chipmunk” was still trailing behind the competition in the Fig’Armor. Then came the Raz de Sein, a stretch of open sea in the southern Iroise Sea between Île de Sein and Pointe du Raz. Even during their preparations, the GER crew had identified this passage as one of the critical points of the race. They knew that the strong local tidal currents at the Raz de Sein and the Chaussée de Sein, in particular, would require precise timing.

“Chipmunk” in the top three on the Chaussee de Sein

When the fleet encountered the oncoming counter-current, “Chipmunk” was able to catch up again. Meiser and Wittmann opted for a course close to the shore, working their way past the La Plate lighthouse against a counter-current of around 2.6 knots at times. They made it through – and for the first time, the German two-man crew were no longer in last place. “That was an important moment for us. After a difficult start, we suddenly realised: we’re back in the race,” said Jens Meiser, looking back on the race.

Things got even better a few hours later. In the early hours of the morning, the wind gradually died down. Conditions set in that the two sailors – who had been taking turns at one-hour intervals, particularly at night – knew all too well from their home waters in southern Germany. Meiser and Wittmann handled the transition brilliantly. With a clean approach to the next mark at the Chaussée de Sein, they worked their way through the field and rounded it in third place.

This was followed by a long offshore leg into the Bay of Biscay – at over 100 nautical miles, by far the longest section of the race. During the following night, the race – which had previously been characterised by tactics and strategy – turned into a speed contest. Under reach, jib and mainsail, “Chipmunk” cut through the darkness at 11 to 13 knots. Spray constantly swept across the deck. “At one point, the water was coming over the boat so heavily that a pair of ski goggles would certainly have come in handy,” said Meiser. But he also added: “It’s precisely at moments like these that you realise why this kind of sailing never lets you go.”

The treat section at Fig’Armor

Jens Meiser reckoned that the relatively inexperienced German Figaro double were about five per cent off the pace of the top boats. This became apparent on the long leg. After the tack back towards Brittany, the morning brought the other side of offshore sailing: sunrise, gennaker and a thrilling glide past Belle-Île and Quiberon. After a long night, this part of the race was a real treat for Meiser and Wittmann. The fact that they crossed the finish line last did not detract from their debut performance. “There’s no point in sugar-coating the result, but it’s not a disappointment either,” said Jens Meiser.

The newcomer to the Figaro class, who sails an Esse 850 at home on Lake Constance – either solo or with friends – had no illusions about the challenging start to France’s talent-spotting class, saying: “The double-handed field was small, but packed with experienced French Figaro sailors. Among others, François Jambou and Pascal Fievet, Adrien Simon and former Solitaire winner Nicolas Troussel, as well as Hugo Dhallenne and Chloé Le Bars, were on the entry list.”

For the German duo, therefore, the time gap was more significant than their ninth-place finish: after around 270 nautical miles, GER20 crossed the finish line just around two and a half hours after the leading team. Meiser knows: “We’re amateurs and we’re sailing here against a fleet of professionals with vast experience of the Figaro class and this sailing area. Of course we want to move further up the field. But this race has shown us that we’ve found our rhythm.”

"Finishing third at one stage and ending up so close to the fleet in terms of time leaves us feeling more hungry than disappointed." Jens Meiser

For Meiser and Wittmann, another realisation is almost more important than their finishing position. The long hours at sea, difficult decisions, lack of sleep, navigation, manoeuvres and constantly working together on the boat have brought the two long-standing friends closer together as a crew. “This race has brought Andreas and me even closer together. We’ve learnt to rely on each other even under pressure, to make decisions together and to keep pushing the boat. We wouldn’t have missed that for the world.”

Back to Lake Constance with a touch of French ‘Figaro spirit’ in my luggage

For the two sailors from Lake Constance, the Fig’Armor therefore ended not so much with a ninth-place finish as with a positive realisation, which Meiser summed up as follows: “That wasn’t the end. It’s left us wanting more!” By Saturday, the pair were already on their way home to southern Germany. Their next challenge awaits them there from 21 to 23 August: The single- and double-handed regatta around Lake Constance organised by the Bregenz Yacht Club.

Following the Fig’Armor, Jens Meiser is planning a double-header in his home waters; he intends to tackle first the solo and then the double-handed race with his Esse 850. He is still looking for a partner for the double-handed race, as Andreas Wittmann is on holiday. What he’ll be doing again this time is La Base, the cradle of French sailing Meiser intends to put into practice at home what he has experienced and learnt in the Figaro class. He says: “It was a fantastic experience. We’ve learnt a great deal as sailors and have made progress. As a sailor, you never stop learning. We’re keen to take this spirit from the highly professional French environment back home with us.”