Transquadra: Solo for "Sharifa" - Cord Hall: "Either it works or it backfires completely"

Rasmus Töpsch and Cord Hall and their JPK 10.10 were still doing well on stage one of the Transquadra. But now the duo from the Yacht Club Strande have to worry. Because they decided to take the route close to land between the Portuguese coast and a traffic separation scheme on the Madeira course, the Baltic 500 fathers are suddenly sailing south alone. Meanwhile, the main field has decided to stay close to the line of contact and set a south-westerly course on the outside of the traffic separation scheme.

"Sharifa" crew in the Transquadra alleyway to the south

Co-skipper Cord Hall said briefly and dryly on Friday afternoon: "Now it's getting exciting... Everyone else is staying offshore. Let's see what happens. Either it works out or it backfires completely." Frenchmen Eric Guignet and Tangi Caron on the JPK 10.30 "Ose" hold the lead in the group of 17 double-handed crews in the Transquadra performance classification. In the tracking, the "Sharifa" crew had fallen back to eleventh place by Friday evening with a swollen gap of a good 50 nautical miles to the leaders.

Earlier on Friday morning, Cord Hall had already reported on the past few days of the Transquadra premiere for his crew, the first leg of which started on 7 July from La Turballe to Madeira. Cod Hall said: "We've finally been sailing with a gennaker for a few hours after spending yesterday cruising in thick fog. It was quite a pain in the arse in light and medium winds. Everything was soaking wet. The fog was coming in everywhere, which wasn't so great. Now the north wind has prevailed. We have between 15 and 18 knots of wind, have the S2 Heavy up and are travelling quite well with it, always at about eight knots over ground, currently set down to the VTG off Lisbon."

Doldrums threaten from the west

The Transquadra duo from Strande near Kiel realised the planned plan to pass the traffic separation area between land and VTG - as things currently stand, they are probably the only crew to do so. Cord Hall had already provided the motivation for the "Sharifa" course choice on Friday morning: "As it looks at the moment, I think our positioning is realistic according to the weather forecast. A new doldrums field will spread from the west, forcing the fleet to work its way relatively far under land along the Portuguese coast, then pass Gibraltar and then turn south towards Madeira. Most of the other boats are positioned behind us or further west, so they'll have to work their way down to us first."

However, the competition obviously didn't think about this, as they continued to sail unperturbed on a south-westerly course on Friday evening. Cord Hall also reported that the Iridium internet connection on board the "Sharifa" was still not working. His team therefore had no current weather data. This was another reason for the course selection. They therefore hope to be able to load new GRIB files and weather data between land and VTG near Lisbon. Commenting on the situation on board, Cord Hall said: "The mood is good, it's getting brighter and brighter. I sailed a night without a cap for the first time. It's going in the right direction, I would say."

Open outcome of a remote dialogue

How the race between the German solo sailors near the coast and the main field further out to sea will turn out, can only be seen in the coming days of racing, when it becomes clearer how the high will move, how strongly it will spread and whether the "Sharifa" crew in the south will find a turn-off to Madeira without a doldrums trap.

Click here to go to the tracker for the intermediate results on stage one of the Transquadra. Six classification groups are shown: two that started in Marseille in the two-parter, four that are heading for Madeira from La Turballe. The "Sharifa" crew will contest the race in the "Double Turballe Performance" class. The soloists and duos of the Transat for ambitious amateur sailors are expected to reach the stage finish next week. Stage two of the Transquadra will start at the beginning of 2025 after a long break. This will make it possible for working participants in particular to take part in the race.