Martinique Cata-Raid 2023 - Day 2
by Martinique Cata-Raid 26 Jan 2023 02:15 PST
22-28 January 2023
Martinique Cata-Raid 2023 - Day 2 © Pierrick Contin
It was the big leg of this Martinique Cata Raid, the longest, covering 38 miles between Trinidad and the town of Le Cabret on the Caribbean coast.
This morning, the sailors were nervous about the passage of the Pointe des Galets, at the very north of the island, which can be particularly tricky to pass with big gusts of wind. The F16 crew of Flavien Bascoul and Sinclair Andreu on Trebuchon Equip confided to us their state of mind: "Big stage today! We're a bit apprehensive! Once we're out of the bay of Trinité, we'll be able to lower the spinnaker a little and maybe it'll be a little calmer for the rounding to the north of Martinique, at least until Grand'Rivière. This will be a first passage point with perhaps a neutralisation."
In any case, as they say in Cap d'Agde: "We'll go at ease". We're playing it safe: finish the stage and we'll look at the performance afterwards! "
The organisation had reserved the possibility of neutralising the race at Grand'Rivière, organising a possible rally before launching a second start more sheltered to the lee of the island, on the side of Prêcheur.
In the end, the conditions were sufficiently mild to allow the whole fleet of F18s and F16s to cross this dreaded cape, even if the passage gave them a hard time. In the process, the F16 Class lost its favourites Emmanuel Le Chapelier / Eric Le Boedec (Befoil 16 Carbone) following the breakage of their port rudder casing. The competition is therefore totally relaunched for this class which only counts four crews in competition.
In Carbet, in the F18 class, the duo Matthieu Marfaing/Jean Boulogne - MM Sailing - won by a very small distance in front of Lou Mourniac/Pierre-Yves Durand - Acomalis - and Nicolas Gillet associated with Ian Girod on Socoveam Anmizi.
In the F16 class, Christophe Sainglain won the race ahead of the Belgians Peter Vaes/ Wout Leeman and Bérengère Kieffer / Pascal Marchais - Uship.
Matthieu Marfaing/ Jean Boulogne - MM Sailing : "This leg was a bit of a war! As we had some minor preparation problems, we paid for it a bit yesterday [6th after losing their spinnaker]. Today we also had problems: the leeward rudder kept coming up. It was a real pain. We still wanted to attack because we felt we were fast, but we weren't completely confident. At one of the first buoys on the course, we took a big nose dive, fortunately without breaking anything! We got back racing very quickly, in less than a minute. There were quite a few crossings that allowed us to come back and we seized a great opportunity to take the lead. We're a little bit more comfortable than Lou [Mourniac] in the transition zones but hats off to her because the conditions were not at all obvious. They did what they had to do without losing a lot of time and they are still far ahead in the general standings. We are satisfied with our race, there is still work to be done on the boat, but we have the speed, so we still have some good things to show for the future.''
Lou Mourniac - Pierre-Yves Durand - Acomalis: "We were apprehensive about this race and the tough conditions with a sporty Grand' Rivière passage. We got off to a very good start, directly in the right pack in front: it was playing out well, it was nice. Everyone was a bit surprised at Grand' Rivière; we were a bit less surprised than the others but we were still overtaken just afterwards. Our strategy on this round was to stay in the leading pack, which we managed to do. In the end we finished second, less than thirty seconds behind the leader: we are very happy!
Nicolas Gillet - Ian Girod - Socoveam Anmizi: "We set off convinced that there were individual recalls without knowing if we were in them or not: that made for a first hour with a lot of doubts, even if we kept up with the first three. After Grand'Rivière, the conditions really picked up; we lost out a bit with bad decisions we shouldn't have had. Then we made a good move which allowed us to come back not far behind the first two. I think we could have done a lot better, but that's the way it is and I would have signed up for this 3rd place straight away! We did 3 yesterday, 3 today, we are consistent and consistency is very important in this Cata Raid.''
Emmanuel Le Chapelier / Eric Le Boedec - Befoil 16 Carbone: "We hooked a fishing net on the long downwind and as we were going quite fast, the port side casing, the part that holds the rudder, broke. In these sea and wind conditions, it was impossible to finish the race! The Martinique Cata Raid 2023 is over for us today: the part, which is all carbon, cannot be repaired. It's part of the game, it's a mechanical sport.
We are still very happy: the boat is brand new, we came here to 'test' the boat. Despite the breakage, we saw a lot of positive things, notably that the boat is fine, and also all the little things we had to improve. For us, it was a great week! We won yesterday in our category, and now we're breaking up while we're in the lead; we've seen a lot of positives, which is already great!"