Safran crew look back on highlights of this transatlantic win

by Safran Sailing Team on 28 Nov 2009
A day after finishing in first place in Costa Rica, Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier Benac take a look at the highlights of this ninth edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre. The two give us their impressions.

Marc, is this transatlantic race a highlight of your sailing career?
This is my first major win in an ocean race, which shows you have to remain determined! Above all, it is a win I am sharing with Charles, but also with the designers, the technical team and the Safran Group. It’s really pleasing too see Groupe Bel finish in second place. We would not have sailed so quickly after the Azores without constant pressure from them. Together the two of us set a cracking pace.

Three years ago, your choice of designer was considered unusual...
I feel a certain amount of pride having set up this design team around Safran, with Guillaume Verdier, Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost. It’s also very pleasing that a major technology group accepted this groundbreaking design project with these designers and this builder (Thierry Eluère), and technical team. Being at the vanguard in all these areas was something innovative and entailed a certain risk.

Was taking on board young crewmen a deliberate choice for you?
I think that two racers of the same age have had similar sailing experiences: there are no real advantages in the way they see and analyse things together. Whenever it is possible, I prefer to choose a sailor from the Solitaire du Figaro background (Armel Le Cléac’h, Charles Caudrelier Benac…) or from the Olympics (Sidney Gavignet, Yann Guichard…), so they can really bring something extra to the project.

What has the association with Charles brought you?
Charles led me to be permanently on a quest for performance: I tend to be more focused on managing the boat and the long term. Over the past few years, I haven’t had the opportunity to do any close contact racing, in very demanding events based on the short term. In ocean racing today, you need to be very focused too on maintaining a steady speed, optimising your trajectory, and keeping your rivals in check. Coming from the Solitaire du Figaro, Charles is extremely well prepared for that.

Charles, what is it like sailing with a sailor, who is more experienced than you?
Marc encouraged me to be more rigorous, especially in paying attention to the boat at all times. For example, I forgot to jam the gennaker halyard on the winch after releasing it and attaching it to the mast cleat: If Marc hadn’t been watching closely, we would have ripped the cleat off and the gennaker would have been in the water! You really have to remain vigilant at all times on these boats.

What do you think about the pace of this race?
There were several phases to this Transat Jacques Vabre: the exit from the English Channel, the decision to remain on the Great Circle Route in the heart of the low-pressure area, the arrival in the Antilles and the Caribbean with a very complicated area 200 miles from the finish. This final phase meant we had to deal with a tropical low-pressure area over Colombia with the final miles being raced in light and very variable winds.

Marc, you made a crucial choice two days into the race…
We hadn’t really defined anything at the start in Le Havre in terms of the way we would do things on board: Charles naturally set about making the tactical choices, analysing the weather charts. When after two days of sailing, we had to choose between the westerly or southern routes, the decision was quickly taken. We couldn’t see any way through in the south and we were confident in the reliability of Safran. So the westerly choice was the logical one.

Charles, what difference was there in comparison to your first Transat, when you finished second?
The course for this second race was much more interesting: crossing the Atlantic from north to south doesn’t offer any strategic choices unlike the voyage from east to west. Two years ago, when I took part in the Transat Jacques Vabre with Marc, Safran had only just come out of the yard. We didn’t yet know her in detail, but today after two seasons and the Vendée Globe, Safran is totally dependable and achieving 100% of her potential.