In the 16th Transat Jacques Vabre, the tension is still high ahead of Sunday's final of the Imoca best. It seems as if the battle for the top places between the spectacular northern breakaways Justine Mettraux and Julien Villion on "Teamwork.net" and the boats that have been leading in the south for days has been decided in favour of the latter. "For People" with defending champion Thomas Ruyant and Morgan Lagravière led the field by around 90 nautical miles on Saturday afternoon ahead of "Paprec Arkéa" and their racing team colleagues on "For the Planet", who never let up - is the podium set?
Justine could be right in front of us in sixth place" (Boris Herrmann)
However, Justine Mettraux and Julien Villion, who sailed so bravely in the cold and stormy north last week, still have every chance of moving up from their seventh place. Boris Herrmann, who finished sixth with Will Harris on "Malizia - Seaexplorer" on Saturday afternoon on course for Fort-de-France, told YACHT online: "Justine could finish just ahead of us in sixth place. That would be my bet at the moment. She can sail a direct course, we still have to gybe to the finish." Who will have the bow nose in front at the finish: "Teamwork.net" or "Malizia - Seaexplorer"?
The battle for the other top ten places also remains exciting, where three strong female skippers could line up with their mixed teams for the first time. In addition to "Teamwork.net" hunter Justine Mettraux, these are "Initiatives Cœur" skipper Samantha Davies and "L'Occitane en Provence" skipper Clarisse Crémer. Sam Davies, with Ocean Race winner Jack Bouttell at her side, was almost bow to bow with the furious Jérémie Beyou and Franck Cammas on "Charal" for fourth place on the final day. Clarisse Crémer sailed towards the Caribbean finish on 18 November in ninth place with co-pilot Alan Roberts.
Considering that the boat has hardly been tested yet and Fabrice and I haven't trained much together, we are very satisfied" (Andreas Baden)
Still in 28th place, Fabrice Amedeo and Andreas Baden from Kiel are heading for the finish line off Fort-de-France. For his Transat premiere for his team, Baden expects to reach the finish line off Fort-de-France on 23 November, having sailed around 1,430 nautical miles.His latest report from on board on Saturday morning:
"The atmosphere here is great. Fabrice and I are enjoying our time at sea together and we're in a good flow together. Unfortunately, due to our conservative sailing in the first two to three days of the race, some weather windows closed or deteriorated significantly for us off the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. This made it difficult for us to be where we wanted to be in the field. But considering that the boat has hardly been tested yet and that Fabrice and I hadn't done much training together, we are very satisfied.
"Sign for Com" advances again in the north
As a result, we regularly manage to be one to two knots faster on average than the next Imocas in the area - usually even in better wind angles. In terms of routing, the northern route seems to be more favourable for the boats in our speed and potential group at the moment. But we all know the game: it all comes down to the finish! And some boats actually had technical problems and damage on the northern route, which we wanted to avoid at all costs due to the tight schedule with a view to the return à la base and the importance of this return regatta."
In the Class 40, Ambrogio Beccaria and Nicolas Andrieu remained the clear leaders at the end of the weekend. With 1,100 nautical miles to the finish, they held a lead of 15 nautical miles over Alberto Bona and Pablo Santurde on "Ibsa". The "Sign for Com" co-skippers Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink were able to fight their way back up a few places in the northern group of the Class 40 field, which was split as in the Imocas. With around 1,500 nautical miles to the finish, the new Hamburgers were in 20th place at midday on Saturday.
Tension in the Transat Jacques Vabre: This summary of 17 November sums up the events and shows powerful images of the sea:
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Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
