A look at the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre

by David Schmidt, Sail-World on 28 Oct 2015 While there’s no disguising late October’s march into the beginning of November-and with it the end of daylight savings-the great news for fans of offshore racing is that this past weekend marked the start of the 5,400-mile Transat Jacques Vabre (TJV), which will take 42 double-handed teams back down the coffee route from Le Harve, France to Itajai, Brazil.

While the TJV is now in its 22nd year (and its eleventh edition), this biennial event has historically rotated the location of its finishing lines, with this year’s finish in Itajai representing the longest of the various transatlantic races.

While this Grand Prix event is almost always contested by large percentages of French skippers, there are some interesting international entrants, Briton Alex Thomson with Guillermo Altadill, Phillipa Hutton-Squire (RSA) and Pip Hare (GBR) in the Class40 Concise 2 and Australian born Jack Bouttell with Frenchman Gildas Mahe.

North Americans is well represented this year, with Eric Holden and Morgan Watson racing O Canada across the Pond, and American offshore great Ryan Breymaier-who spent his spring and summer busting-up longstanding offshore records as skipper of the 105-foot trimaran Lending Club 2-teaming up with Nicolas Boidevezi (FRA) aboard the IMOCA 60 Adopteunskipper.net

Racing began Sunday (October 25), with 42 boats crossing the starting line. Of these contestants, 14 were Class 40s, 20 were IMOCA 60s, four were Multi 50s and four were racing in the Ultim class of monster trimarans, including the brand-new, 30-meter (100 foot) Macif, which is being co-skippered by Francois Gabart-the runaway winner of the last Vendee Globe aboard an IMOCA 60 also called Macif-and his countryman Pascal Bidegorry (FRA).

Last night the two Ultims-Sodebo Ultim (Thomas Colville and Jean-Luc Nelias) and Macif- were leading the charge, followed by the Multi 50s, the IMOCA 60s and the Class 40s.

It was a hard night and there was a rash of retirements and gear problems. Jeremie Beyou, skipper of the IMOCA 60 Maitre Coq reported forestay issue and a stop over to assess the damage. Sébastien Josse and Charles Caudrelier, the Volvo Ocean Race Dong Feng skipper reported they were retiring their foiling Mono 60, Edmund de Rothschild to Lorient.

Prince de Bretangne's Lionel Lemonchois and Roland Jourdain advised race control their 80 foot trimaran had capsized while they were 140 miles off La Coruna.

Australian born Jack Bouttell with Frenchman Gildas Mahé Team Concise headed to Cork with damage, while Morgan Lagravière and Nicolas Lunven from the IMOCA 60 Safran heading for Brest after sustaining damage.

While this year’s TVJ is shaping up to be a long and competitive transoceanic event, the IMOCA 60s in particular are using this race as an important dress rehearsal for next year’s Vendee Globe. As we have previously discussed, the IMOCA class changed their rules for this Vendee Globe cycle to allow skippers to fit L-shaped foils onto their boats that are intended to help lift some of the boats’ displacement while sailing off-the-breeze, and the newest of the IMOCA 60s that are competing in this year’s TJV carry these appendages.

And while last summer’s Fastnet Race was the first time that multiple IMOCA 60s lined up to test their new foil packages, conditions didn’t allow these foils to shine on that particular course (read: additional drag while sailing to weather), all eyes will be on the TJV fleet to see how these fancy new foils stack up against their more “traditional” (if such a word even applies to a development class such as the IMOCA 60s!) Open 60 rivals.

For Holden and Watson aboard O Canada, and for Boidevezi and Breymaier aboard Adopteunskipper.net, semi-lifting foils won’t be a concern, as both of these boats (with launch dates circa 2006 and 2007, respectively) use older-generation IMOCA 60 designs, foils, sails and technologies.

Last night Alex Thomson (GBR) and Guillermo Altadill (ESP) were leading the IMOCA 60 charge aboard Thomson’s 2015-generation Hugo Boss, which benefits from the new L-shaped foils, followed by Kito de Pavant (FRA) and Yann Regniau (FRA) aboard the 2010-built Bastide – Otio, and Bertrand de Broc (FRA) and Marc Guillemot (FRA) aboard the 2007-generation MACSF; O Canada was sitting in 19th place, while Adopteunskipper.net was sitting in 18th place.