The first leg of the Transquadra was already a tough one. The race for ambitious amateur sailors over the age of 40 had led its challengers from either Marseille or La Turballe to Madeira. The soloists and double-handed crews could choose whether to head for Madeira via the Atlantic or the Mediterranean.
Transquadra: Transat for ambitious amateur crews
The two German Transquadra teams in the race are the Hamburg brothers Benjamin and Christoph Morgen (Norddeutscher Regatta Verein) on the JPK 10.30 "Momo" and the Baltic 500 fathers Rasmus Töpsch and Cord Hall (Strander Yacht-Club) on the JPK 10.10 "Sharifa". Both had mastered the turbulent and challenging first leg well despite a few hurdles.
The organisers then took a deliberately long six-month break. This allowed the majority of the participants to better integrate the big adventure into their work and family lives. "Momo" had calculated sixth place in the "Double Turballe Performance" division on stage one, while "Sharifa" came seventh. Both GER duos experienced their blue, and initially mainly grey, miracle.
It wasn't quite as advertised in the organisers' brochures, according to which the spinnaker is actually raised in La Turballe and only lowered again off Madeira." Cord Hall
On board "Sharifa", the Iridium connection had failed at times during the first leg, meaning that the two co-skippers Töpsch and Hall could only work with outdated weather data. They made the best of it, but it cost them energy. "In terms of the effort factor, it was already on a par with leg two," Rasmus Töpsch had surmised before the double-distance transatlantic jump to Martinique.
Transquadra endurance test for the Morgen brothers
The Morgen brothers had to overcome their own endurance test during the opening stage. Their autopilot failed just four hours after the start. "We steered by hand for eight and a half days," reported Benjamin Morgen after crossing the finish line. Nevertheless, Benjamin and Christoph Morgen crossed the finish line in second place out of 17 two-hand crews in the largest "performance duo" classification group after a strong performance.
After the first 1300-nautical-mile challenge, the second leg from Madeira to Le Marin in Martinique, which is a good twice as long, has been underway since 1 February. The fleet of 39 boats started last weekend in pleasantly mild conditions with winds of around ten knots and flat water.
What looked easy and fun to sail in 15 to 20 knots of wind after the first few days on the charts was experienced by the crews on the Atlantic as rather unstable conditions in which many manoeuvres were required. "It was a very choppy night with 40-degree gusts and gusts of 26 to 27 knots with five or six jibes! These are trade winds that will calm down during the day," reported Alex Ozon from Team 2 Choc on Tuesday morning.
"Momo" and "Sharifa" are doing well in the race
On the start day, the organisers had expected to be able to welcome the fastest boats in the fleet to Le Marin by mid-February. At midday on 4 February, "Momo" and "Sharifa" were in sixth and eighth place in their group after having sailed around 2200 nautical miles. To understand the performance: Calculated, these positions would have resulted in fourth and fifth place at that time!
When you haven't seen a boat for six months and then you're about to cross the Atlantic, it's naturally physically and mentally exhausting." Rasmus Töpsch
Cord Hall gave his initial assessment at sea on 4 February: "From my point of view, the first few days were very exhausting. You first have to get used to it again, because it's like a zero-to-a-hundred cold start. This applies both to the sailing itself and the very cold temperatures at night." Ramus Töpsch confirmed: "We imagined it would be a bit warmer, but that's probably part of it. But I think we got into a good groove in the first 36 hours. Now it's going well..."
Transquadra hope: gaining metres in the south
Rasmus Töpsch continued: "At the beginning, we decided on a route relatively close to the Rhumbline. Of course, this meant that the tracking looked really good at the beginning. But there's still a long, long way to go. The metres are currently being made in the south. We're just working our way there. We've now also understood a bit about cloud hopping. We're doing it for the first time." Who doesn't think of Boris Herrmann's Atlantic Vendée Globe battle with the dark mountains of clouds in the sky when they hear these words?
The crew has had their heavy S2 up for almost three days. "That alone is a new challenge, a new experience," explains Rasmus Töpsch. "Pulling up a sail like this and then waking up in the morning and thinking: Damn, what have I pulled up again? Oh yeah, the same as three days ago. That's quite funny."
According to Töpsch, his team is currently doing "quite okay": "We're not doing any hussar rides or brilliant moves here, but on the whole we're doing well. We position ourselves between Rhumbline and the most extreme courses. We simply lack experience, we have to realise self-critically. We are trying to make the best of it! The final goal on Tuesday was to get south as quickly as possible in light winds - there is wind...
Farewell to Madeira - this is how the Transquadra fleet started stage two on 31 January:
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