Transat Jacques Vabre - Has Groupe Bel left their run too late?

by Transat Jacques Vabre and Sail-World.com on 22 Nov 2009
In the Transat Jacques Vabre with less than 48 hours or so of the race left to run, is time running out for Groupe Bel's chances to steal victory?

Transat Jacques Vabre leaders Safran and Groupe Bel are eating up the miles with ease, racing downwind in consistent trade winds passing offshore of the border between Venezuela and Columbia in around 15-17 knots of easterly breeze.

Kito De Pavant and Francois Gabart are just one gybe behind as the Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier set the pace, still very slightly quicker early this morning.

Safran’s lead is out to 66.1 miles and they are looking safe for the meantime although light winds are forecast for the inshore area off Puerto Limon at arrival time.

Mike Golding and Javier Sanso have been returning the steady miles, the British skipper will be pleased to be holding their own for speed with the two leaders, enjoying the ride and counting down the miles to get in, and holding the same 260 miles lead over Foncia.

'Peaceful night, under pilot. We stayed up to play poker late into the night. After the second bottle of whisky Jérémie left to lie down. Such a time to go for him. In the absence of a partner then I played patience and finished off the gin. And why not? It’s not only those on dry land who can party on Saturday nights. It’s good that’s not the whole story, but now we will work at it. With two hands....With a hangover, Mich on Foncia.'

But in the three way tussle for sixth it is the Spanish duo Pepe Ribes and Alex Pella who have moved up to sixth, as much by virtue of their inshore berth, getting a little more breeze inshore but Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nelias on Veolia Environnement are slightly quicker this morning., whilst Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson are 16.6 miles behind in eighth.

Alex Pella commented: 'We have been sailing very well, since we managed toget out of the calm before those in our group close to us. Also, the option to position ourselves further south worked really well and we are catching better winds before them and this is helping us to cut the distances to those in front.

'The only downside is that we keep having some small problems with the compass and it is giving us some headaches. It actually breaks a bit our rhythm in the watch system since we are trying all the time to solve it. But anyways, putting this aside, we are really happy with our position right now.

'Tomorrow we’ll get to the Antilles and enter into the Caribbean Sea', explained Alex. 'We haven’t decided yet where we will go through exactly. It will depend on the weather conditions and reports in the next few hours. Tonight we will have to gybe but we will have to wait until we get the right shift that can help us to go faster and avoid losing any miles'.

Rankings:

Monohulls
IMOCA

1-SAFRAN Marc Guillemot - Charles Caudrelier Benac
2-GROUPE BEL Kito De Pavant - François Gabart
3-MIKE GOLDING YACHT RACING Mike Golding - Javier Sanso

Multihulls
Multi50
1-CRÊPES WHAOU! Franck Yves Escoffier - Erwan Leroux
2-GUYADER POUR URGENCE CLIMATIQUE Victorien Erussard - Loic Fecquet
3-REGION AQUITAINE-PORT MEDOC Lalou Roucayrol - Amaiur Alfaro
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