Sam Goodchild: The final phase of the Course des Caps is full of potential pitfalls
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 4 Jul 2025 15:05 PDT
4 July 2025
MACIF Santé Prévoyance - Course des Caps © Guillaume Gatefait / DISOBEY / MACIF
Sam Goodchild, the British skipper of MACIF Santé Prévoyance who has been dominating the IMOCA round Britain and Ireland race since the start of the third day, says the goal now is to focus on the complex finishing section and not make any errors in the next 24 hours.
Speaking from on board as his boat went upwind off the Norfolk coast in the North Sea, Goodchild acknowledged that his first test as skipper of a fully-crewed IMOCA has gone well during this race - the Course des Caps - Boulogne sur Mer - Banque Populaire du Nord.
Goodchild and his crew either led or disputed the lead in the early stages heading west down the English Channel, and then took the lead outright on the way to the Fastnet Rock off the southwest tip of Ireland. He was challenged on the way to the Orkney Islands by Thomas Ruyant and his crew on Vulnerable, who has since retired with a damaged mast, but Goodchild remained in front.
"So far the experience has been a pleasure - it's been a great boat, a great team and I'm enjoying it so far," Goodchild told the Class in a call from on board. "We will try to keep that up to the finish and obviously the best way to enjoy it is by holding this position to the end."
The position he is holding is firmly at the head of the fleet. With 270 nautical miles to go to the finish at Boulogne-sur-Mer, Macif Santé Prévoyance - the boat sailed to victory in the last Vendée Globe by Charlie Dalin - was 42 miles ahead of Élodie Bonafous and her crew on Association Petits Princes-Queguiner in second place, with Nico Lunven's team on Holcim-PRB another 30 miles back in third.
Goodchild acknowledged that the final section of the race is full of potential pitfalls and with a large exclusion zone to negotiate in the Strait of Dover. "It's all good on board," he summarised. "Everyone is staying concentrated - we've got a little bit of a calm spot now in the North Sea, but it's been a bumpy ride overnight and it's going to be a bumpy ride past the Thames Estuary and down to Dover with lots of obstacles and lots of opportunities to make mistakes. So we are going to have to stay concentrated and make sure we all keep it in one piece all the way to the finish."
The highly-rated Briton who finished ninth on debut in the last Vendée Globe and was the IMOCA Globe Series Champion in 2023, says preparation has been the key to how he and his team are dealing with the finale of this 2,000-mile race around the British Isles.
"There's been a lot of preparation going on. Now that we've got the weather, we can actually see roughly where we are going to be going and what the difficulties are going to be, between commercial traffic, wind farms and sandbanks and all that, and trying to plan a navigational route with the weather on top.
"So there's a lot going on," he added, "but for the last day or two, we've been able to get our heads around that and how we are going to go about it. It's not going to be the easiest part of the race, but it is part of the race, so we will do our best."
While Goodchild has clearly taken skippering a fully-crewed IMOCA for the first time in a race in his stride, you sense the atmosphere on board has been relaxed but focused too. He said Frenchman Guillaume Combescure, the technical director of the Macif Santé Prévoyance team, has been a big player in this race.
"He knows the boat like the back of his hand, having helped to design it alongside Charlie (Dalin) and Guillaume Verdier, and he knows the logic behind everything that has been done and how it's done and why, as well as being a good sailor himself, so he's a key part of the crew," said Goodchild.
Loïs Berrehar, who was Dalin's replacement skipper for the last Vendée Globe and will be competing in the next Vendée himself, has been another powerful contributor. "He also knows the boat quite well and is very good at making it go fast in a straight line, so we push on him a lot to make sure we are going fast all the time, wherever we are going," said Goodchild.
Charlotte Yven, meanwhile, the first woman to win the Transat Paprec twice in a row, has been bringing all her experience to her first race in an IMOCA. "She's a good Figaro sailor and she understands keeping the intensity up and keeping the cadence up and trimming the sails and the pilot and, like Loïs, making sure we are always going fast in the right direction," said Goodchild.
Goodchild's own role is about "keeping an eye on the nav" and making sure all the manoeuvres are well coordinated so no ground is lost.
"And yeah," he said, "that's how it's worked so far and it seems to be working OK."
Over 400 miles behind Goodchild's boat, the Hungarian sailor Szabolcs Weöres and his crew on the 2007 daggerboard design, New Europe, are enjoying their race despite the fact that they are now in ninth and last place going round the top of the Orkneys.
Crew member Bérénice Charrez, a sailor and bio-engineering specialist (the author of the recent IMOCA Human Performance Project, looking at how IMOCA skippers were affected by the challenge of the Vendée Globe), has been loving her first taste of racing in the Class.
"For sure, it's been really exciting to be on the racecourse with all those sailing legends that I got to know during the last Vendée Globe when I did my physiological study," she said. "So it's been fun to hang out not as a scientist but as a competitor, or at least part of the sailing team."
Charrez has enjoyed seeing the coastlines of Ireland and Scotland after sailing further north than she has ever before. "Not only do we see beautiful landscapes, it's a great opportunity to discover some country and more importantly, to get to know what it feels like to be on board an IMOCA," she said.
The crew on New Europe knew they would struggle to keep up with the latest foiling IMOCAs. But they were delighted to stay with the back of the pack as far as the Fastnet Rock, and enjoyed close racing with Fabrice Amédéo's crew on FDJ-United-WeWise (now retired), and Sam Davies and her crew on Initiatives Coeur. Then they had a thrilling ride off the wind all the way to the top of Scotland when New Europe was hitting speeds of 25-27 knots.
"The fact that we are behind - obviously we were expecting it, so it's no surprise," explained Charrez. "Until the Fastnet we were really in the game, so that was really fun and we pushed hard to stay close to the other boats... since then we have been trying to sail well, make the right decisions, stay safe and go fast," she added.
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