Transat Jacques Vabre: Round 2 underway - Class 40 and Ocean Fifty launched

Under grey clouds and accompanied by cold November rain, the two classes Ocean Fifty and Class 40 started round two of their Transat challenge on Monday morning. 40 Class 40 duos, six Ocean 50 multihull racers and a total of 92 sailors opened the main part of their race in two and a half metre waves and winds of around 20 knots from the west-southwest. In the opening phase, gusts of up to 40 knots repeatedly hit the crews after the start.

For the Ocean Fifties, a theoretical 4,200 nautical miles are on the programme on the course from Lorient to the destination port of Fort-de-France on Martinique. The Cape Verde island of Sal will be left to starboard. The Class 40 fleet has 3,750 nautical miles to cover and will leave Madeira to starboard. Both fleets are in for a rough first week.

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"Sign for Com": ten places gained after a slow start

Among the Class 40 yachts, the "Sign for Com" duo Lennart Burke/Melwin Fink is also the only purely German trio in this 16th Transat edition. The young professionals did not get off to the best possible start. However, two and a half hours after the start at 10.45 am, the duo had already worked their way up from 34th place to 24th. Tendency: still rising. The new Hamburgers have set their sights higher and are likely to show more on their two-and-a-half-week ride.

The lead in the Class 40 field was initially taken by the "Seafrigo-Sogestran" with Cédric Chateau and Guillaume Pirouelle, which had been successfully repaired after their collision and retirement in the sprint leg from Le Havre to Lorient through no fault of their own. In their case, the jury made an interesting judgement: because the Frenchmen were unable to finish the sprint leg, they were initially placed back in the classification with the time sailed by the last boat in the sprint plus six hours.

Jury gives "Seafrigo-Sogestran" a fair chance of compensation and a top result

Further compensation will be made after the end of the race. Then the time of "Seafrigo-Sogestran" for the sprint will be replaced by the time that the team had achieved with the same position in the sprint, which Chateau/Pirouelle now achieve on stage two. For a better understanding: Should "Seafrigo-Sogestran" win the second, big stage of the Transat Jacques Vabre, they would be credited with the time that Ambrogio Beccaria and Nicolas Andrieu achieved as sprint winners for the first sprint stage. If "Seafrigo-Sogestran" were to finish fifth on stage 2, for example, they would be credited with the time of the boat that finished fifth on the opening leg for the sprint.

While the Ocean Fifties are expected to arrive in the Caribbean port of destination Fort-de-France around 18 November, the Class 40 field is expected to arrive around 22 November, i.e. with a race duration of around 16 days.

Sailing on TV: NDR broadcasts the Imoca start on Tuesday

In Le Havre, meanwhile, the Imoca crews await their start on Tuesday morning. NDR will be showing the original English-language broadcast on 7 November from 9 a.m. in the live stream of its online sports service.

Boris Herrmann said shortly before the start: "The weather forecast is currently much more favourable than when the start was postponed a good week ago. But they are still not entirely without problems. We will pass one or two more weather fronts with gusts of up to 50 knots. And then there's the big question of strategy: northbound or southbound? The trade winds will be much more moderate, the northern route could be faster. That's how it looks in the model at the moment."

That's the big crux of the race: we have to at least make a preliminary decision at the western exit of the canal. The fleet will probably split on day three of the regatta." (Boris Herrmann)

Boris Herrmann also knows: "There is also a great deal of uncertainty. At the moment, a journey time of 15 days is foreseeable. Such long-term weather models are of course very uncertain. That's the big crux of this race: we have to at least make a preliminary decision at the western exit of the canal. The fleet will probably split on day three of the regatta. With one part sailing westwards and virtually attacking through the tough and rough conditions of the North Atlantic, and one part choosing the safe southern route.

The key question: Which Imoca course will be the right one?

We won't know which path will be the right one, or will have been the right one, for another ten days. We still have no idea where we will end up."

Armel Le Cléac'h and Sébastien Josse defended their lead on day eight of the Ultims, the only class to have been in the race for a good week. With a lead of 40 nautical miles over "SVR Lazartigue" and 50 nautical miles over the defending champion "Edmond de Rothschild", both the leaders and all four chasers had already crossed the equator and reached the southern hemisphere.

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Impressions of the sailors after the skipper's briefing on Sunday and before the restart of the Ocean Fifty and Class 40 classes in the 16th Transat Jacques Vabre on Monday morning:

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