- Transat Café L'Or: competition faster than the routing reveals
- Transat Café L'Or: "You'd have to ask NASA..."
- Plenty of "Engie" energy for Transat Café L'Or
- Lanièce and Beucke hold their own in the top 20
- Transat Café L'Or: the advantages of the southern route
- "Crazy" extension at Transat Café L'Or
- When Transat and Mini-Transat sailors meet...
170 nautical miles apart and yet bow to bow: in the Transat Café L'Or, the best in the north and the best in the south are fighting for the Class 40 lead. Their pursuers are fighting the same battle. Most of the crews have been asking themselves the same question for many days: will the north or the south make the hoped-for gains? The race is still wide open. Decisions could only be made at the last minute just before Martinique. Most recently, the first Class40ies were expected between 17 and 18 November.
Now that the podium and position battles in the other three classes of the Transat Café L'Or have long been fought out, the Class40 continues to keep sailors and observers on tenterhooks. After 19 days full of effort and thrills, the crews on board their 40-foot yachts are showing the first signs of fatigue on day 20, despite a safety stop in La Curuña lasting several days. However, neither morale nor the will to win is flagging, although the stragglers are threatened with a lack of water and perhaps even a missed time limit.
Transat Café L'Or: competition faster than the routing reveals
On the afternoon of 14 November, the "Seafrigo - Sogestran" sailors Guillaume Pirouelle and Cédric Chateau had recently gained a small lead in the long-distance duel with the best northern boat "SNMS - Faites un don" in the south. On Friday evening, they maintained the lead they had gained the day before with a lead of around 30 nautical miles. Pirouelle/Chateau headed for Martinique at around the 16th parallel north.
Around 170 nautical miles to the north, Corentin Douguet and Axel Tréhin on "SNSM - Faites un don" gave their all to regain the lead they had lost the day before. They had led the Class 40 fleet for a good ten days. For a long time, the chosen northerly course had given them the lead before the south boats caught up mile by mile because the north boats had to contend with lighter winds at times. Now the cards seem to have been dealt for the final, the courses for the approach to the finish line have been chosen.
"It really will be decided in the last few days," explained Cédric Chateau in the radio round on Friday morning. And this too: "It's hard to say who will be in front. According to the routing, we should be five or ten miles ahead of them." From Cédric Chateau's point of view, however, the problem is that "SNSM - Faites un don" seems to be faster than the routings show. "Our small lead is melting away," said the co-skipper on "Seafrigo - Sogestran" regretfully. What's more, his crew had just spent a turbulent night parrying a series of gusts in the jibing slalom.
Transat Café L'Or: "You'd have to ask NASA..."
In addition to the competition, Funkrunde had also provided some explanations in the morning for the fascinating light phenomenon that Axel Tréhin and Corentin Douguet had been able to observe the previous night. Between two "attacks" of flying fish, the duo had time to admire a "rain of small fireballs" in the distance and even capture the moment.
As the "balls" were too slow for a shooting star, Corentin Douguet suspected a meteorite. "You'd have to ask NASA," he joked, before putting forward another theory: "Unless they were invaders from another planet. If that's the case, we'll find out quickly." The crew shows one phase of the fireball spectacle in the video here. The "meteorite" was not the only surprise guest last night. Unwelcome brown algae (Sargassum) also turned up. "These algae, which are found in the south-west of the North Atlantic, can now be seen as far as the eye can see," reported the crew of the "Vogue avec un Crohn".
Her observations in detail: "They collect in huge carpets that sometimes drift for kilometres on the surface of the water. They get caught in the keel and rudders and slow down our already arduous progress in these fickle winds. As we can't avoid them, we're constantly watching the keel camera and trying to judge at what density we need to reverse to get rid of them."
Plenty of "Engie" energy for Transat Café L'Or
Meanwhile, Aina Bauza Roig and Axelle Pillain on "Engie" had nothing but good news to share with the organisers. Axelle Pillain, a long-time member of Boris Herrmann's Malizia team, reported: "With the sun, we have plenty of energy. And so do our solar panels! We surf great in the trade winds. There is a bit of sargassum, but to be honest, it's just great here!"
The duo, who are sponsored as part of the Cap pour Elles initiative, enjoy the Transat Café L'Or to the max and like to measure themselves against the competition. "We're constantly comparing our courses, our speeds, whether we're getting closer or further away," explained Axelle Pillain. "At the moment, we're looking to see whether we can overtake Pep (ed.: Pep Costa/Pablo Santurde Del Arco on "VSF Sports") or not. North, south, I don't know yet who will manage to overtake. We'll take stock at the end in Martinique."
One thing is certain: the two sailors don't want to put themselves under any pressure. "Who scares us the most on the course? Nobody scares us," said Axelle Pillain. "We sail without complexes. Our goal is to arrive in the best possible place. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain." When asked about the two former Vendée Globe winners around her - Vincent Riou and Michel Desjoyeaux - Axelle Pillain said with a smile: "We are the ones putting them under pressure. You'd have to ask them if we scare them."
Lanièce and Beucke hold their own in the top 20
The "Engie" crew sailed in the south group, finishing in 22nd place, while Alexandre Le Gallais and Michel "Le Professeur" Desjoyeaux on "Trimcontrol" were two places ahead of them in the north group in twentieth place. Vincent Riou and Yann Doffin sailed in 26th place in the north group, having recently pulled in an "expensive" beat to the south. Meanwhile, Sahsa Lanièce and Sanni Beucke on "Alderan" had made further progress in the south. They sailed towards Martinique a good 400 nautical miles behind the leaders in nineteenth place.
Sanni Beucke reported from the sea on Friday about her crew's decision in favour of the southern route and progress below the 15th parallel north. The 2021 49erFX silver medallist said: "The southern positioning is going well for us. It was a decision for the crew and the boat. On the one hand, our boat, a Mach 5, is very favoured in aft winds and on the other hand, our goals had slipped a little after I tore my ligament."
Beucke had suffered the injury on leg one before the fleet was sent to a safety stop in La Coruña by the race organisers. Examinations there had revealed the rupture of a posterior cruciate ligament. Sanni Beucke will therefore contest the second long leg across the Atlantic with an orthosis. The current race of the two women is also subordinate to the goal of qualifying skipper Sasha Lanièce for the Route du Rhum.
Transat Café L'Or: the advantages of the southern route
"We have to finish for that. Life on board is exhausting and so we decided on the southern route where we have a heel of around 15 degrees and not 30 as on the upwinders (northern route)," Beucke told YACHT online on the evening of 14 November.
The 34-year-old continued: "The northern route also involved an incredible number of sail changes. Also impractical if you're a bit damaged. So we chose the southern route and were very pleased that we weren't the only ones who were in the mood for warm temperatures."
On "Alderan", her crew had to invest "quite a lot of distance" "to get this far south". In the following days, the Frenchwoman and the German could even dive deeper into the south. Beucke said: "We have constant wind until the end - I knock on wood. When I look at the route for the northerners, it's less clear. I think we'll have a good result if we sail the boat to Martinique the way it is at the moment."
"Crazy" extension at Transat Café L'Or
Of course, that's not certain, says Beucke. "I haven't done any routing for the northern ships. That's beyond our control anyway. Speaking of control: the leg is in its orthosis and completely under control. So, nothing is moving at all. For the first few days, it was difficult to get to grips with this new feeling in my leg. In the meantime, I've found my ways and tricks."
Sanni Beuck is supported by a physiotherapist friend who helps via WhatsApp. "That makes me feel very safe," said the Kiel native. And this too: "The race is now a week longer than we originally thought, which I think is crazy. And we still have five days to go!"
The organisers' summary of the day starts on a cheerful note on this 20th day in the Transat Café L'or, as Conrad Colman reports on his encounter with a mini-Transat soloist. Colman and Mathieu Blanchard are the penultimate boat in the Imoca class still sailing in the Transat Café L'or, after Fabrice Amedeo and Andres Baden from Kiel had previously reached the finish on "FDJ United - WeWise" in 16th place on Thursday.
When Transat and Mini-Transat sailors meet...
Conrad Colman recounts his encounter with the penultimate mini-transat sailor Chu Yi from China on his course to Saint-François. Chu Ji still had Victor David in front of him at the time. The German-Frenchman still had around 80 nautical miles to go to Saint-François on Friday evening in the Mini-Transat after breaking his mast. Behind him, Chu Yi had Thiemo Huuk as the last mini-transat in the fleet, who still had 400 nautical miles to go after his unfortunate early mast break.
