Transat Jacques Vabre – Pushing for every mile

by Hélène Tzara on 12 Nov 2011 Transat Jacques Vabre race leader Jean-Pierre Dick, sailing with co-skipper Jérémie Beyou on Virbac-Paprec 3, knows that the strategy that they and second placed Alex Thomson and Guillermo Altadill on Hugo Boss have followed has the hallmarks of a possible victory. However the double winner of the Barcelona World Race and twice victor in this Transat Jacques Vabre was pressing for every fast mile today, knowing full well that final days in the Caribbean still have the potential for pitfalls.

With water sluicing the deck, fully powered under maximum gennaker area, Dick and Beyou were – like those who are valiantly pursuing them over 300 miles behind – swapping helm time regularly, enjoying the adrenalin rush of keeping the boat close to the edge knowing that they have a small slow down ahead. After that, Dick said today, they should have a direct route under northerly breezes which they should get to first:

'We have a little ridge to get through but it will not be as bad for us as the boats to the south. There will always be wind, then we get a northerly which will pick up and get us down to Santo Domingo under spinnaker which is interesting for us and should be good.' Dick, who has sailed more miles with his IMOCA Open 60 than any other skipper n the race including his winter circumnavigation.

'The thing is that there are so many random possibilities towards the end of a race like this, and so you have to keep pushing for every mile. But we try to save the boat and keep it in good condition. Towards Costa Rica there are big squalls, a possible lottery aspect that you have to factor in.'

Alex Thomson’s mojo seems to be re-booted. His partnership with Barcelona’s Guillermo Altadil has seen them pushing relentlessly to keep pace with the newer generation VPLP-Verdier design, and the British-Spanish duo were still only 43.3 miles off the pace set by Virbac-Paprec 3. Many miles can be lost and gained on the final nights closing to Costa Rica, and the Hugo Boss duo will know they perhaps don’t have the firepower to overhaul the French duo on speed, but if they can stay in Virbac-Paprec 3’s slipstream an opportunity might come knocking nearer the final days.

The battle for third is all consuming. Incumbent through today has been Mike Golding and Bruno Dubois again on Gamesa, but they appear to have fallen prey to the advance of poster boys François Gabart and Seb Col on Macif. On the afternoon’s 1600hrs UTC poll Macif had the tiniest of margins, arcing gently NW, while Gamesa has been gybing downwind. The two were on converging course, some seven miles apart on the water. And Armel Le Cléac'h, the Jackal, on Banque Populaire with Chris Pratt is in the running too, some 20 miles behind, also on a NW trajectory to avoid the zone of light winds ahead.

Aboard Safran today, Yann Eliès admitted that their best hope as it stands, is third.

In the Multi 50 duel, Actual has first place locked down but that was not stopping the two Loïc’s Fequet and Escoffier on Maitre Jacques from trying a different option just so they are not simply following in the tracks of Yves Le Blevec and Sam Manuard on the leading Multi.

In Class 40 Aquarelle.com reign supreme, adding 37 miles to their lead since the same time yesterday. Hannah Jenner and Jesse Naimark-Rowse on 40 Degrees have been going well in the trade winds, losing slightly to their rivals to the south Groupe Picoty, who are eight miles ahead in third.

Aboard Gust Buster, Anna-Maria Renken admitted today that she and her rookie co-skipper Slovenian Jacika Jesih were relieved to have emerged from the worst of the storms now which had seen them with 50kts and big seas:

Unfortunately news came later today that the two girls are reported to be heading for Ponta Delgada on the Azores island of Sao Miguel in the Azores to try and repair a damaged rudder.

News of some of the retirements is positive. Off the Breton coast the fishing boat Agrion has Initiatives Alex Olivier in tow and a delicate towing operation for Cheminées Poujoulat, making around 1.5kts, is hoped to conclude in the Azores on Saturday.

Quotes:
Hugh Piggin (NZL) co-skipper 11th Hour Racing (USA):
'We are reaching along now, we have some breeze, we are right out of the worst of it and so things are pretty good. It is still overcast.

Last night was good we had a pretty gentle time, we had the Code Zero up for most of the night which was good. We were catching up on sleep so we are now well rested and since noon today we have had breeze of up to 25kts, we have taken the Code Zero down and we are just reaching along. It is good, stable and we are going well with a good routine.

For the first seven days we were pretty tired, we are feeling good. We are OK with our position in the race, we are a little further south than we would like to be, we got forced south by all those fronts coming through probably a little more than what would have been ideal, but there is a lot of race to go, and we are looking forwards to pushing the boat pretty hard.

The boat has been pretty good, we have had no breakages at all in the first week. We were pretty careful with all those fronts, not to pushing too hard.

'The rocket is going well. We have the number two batch just starting to germinate now, it is going well.'

Sebastien Col, co-skipper Macif:
'Everything is going well and we’re having lots of fun. We are a bit put out by the high pressure ridge passage but it is motivating to come back at the fleet leaders and we manage to have some good speeds for the past two days. I hope they are scared of us ! It's sunny. The night has a full moon, everything comes together nicely to attack the leaders!

We could spend hours at the helm, but we are being careful with Francois, we swap over often to keep up the speed.

We must sail as fast as we can, there has been no tactical options for the past two days, and we must hang in to put pressure on the guys in front, and drop the guys behind, even if it is not that easy with boats like Safran or Groupe Bel.

Loic Fequet, skipper Maitre Jacques:
Since yesterday we have been sailing at 20 knots and it's interesting!

Everything hums the whole the time, and the daggerboard and rudder make some noise. We take off on every wave and so we have to hold on well to stand up inside the boat. We change every hour on the helm to keep the speed up.

We will try to keep this pace until tomorrow as it will calm down when we get closer to the the West Indies. We won’t do the same as our rival we'll certainly go south pretty soon. Many things will happen in the coming three days, we had our router, Jean-Yves Bernot. We leave him to devise us a path in the depression to pass St. Barth. We are quite eager to jibe, it's been 24 hours we are sailing on the same side and you start having back pain. Our helm seats are under review.

Damien Seguin skipper ERDF Des Pieds et des Mains:
'It's going very well today! We are sailing under pretty cool conditions, making speeds which are regularly above 15 knots. The boat and crew are happy.

We are under gennaker, very tight to the wind, the sea is still quite unsettled and disorderly. We take turn to try to establish a speed record at the helm, it's pretty good fun.

We are attacking, and if we can manage to get close to aquarelle.com we will have done well. We never stop stoking the engine. Watches are fun as we both want to spend the max of time at the helm. It's so fun to helm the boat right now! There is a deal between us, 'If I keep the helm for a bit longer I’ll make dinner tonight'


Standings at 1700hrs CET on Friday, November 11th, 2011
IMOCA
1 - Virbac Paprec 3 (Jean-Pierre Dick - Jérémie Beyou) : 2083.3 miles to finish
2 - Hugo Boss (Alex Thomson - Guillermo Altadill) : 43.4 miles to leader
3 - Macif (François Gabart - Sébastien Col) : 305.3 miles to leader

Multi50
1 - Actual (Yves Le Blevec - Samuel Manuard) : 2704.3 miles to finish
2 - Maitre Jacques (Loïc Fequet - Loïc Escoffier) : 220.1 miles to leader

Class40
1 - Aquarelle.com (Yannick Bestaven - Eric Drouglazet) : 2916.2 miles to finish
2 - ERDF Des Pieds et des Mains (Damien Seguin - Yoann Richomme) : 142.1 miles to leader
3 - Groupe Picoty (Jacques Fournier - Jean-Christophe Caso) : 225.8 miles to leader

For more rankings click Transat Jacques Vabre website