17th Transat Café L'or Day 4: Press Pause, Press Play
by Transat Café L'OR 29 Oct 10:38 PDT
29 October 2025
Corentin Douguet and Axel Tréhin (SNSM Faites un don!) arrive at La Coruña, Spain in the Transat Café L'or Le Havre Normandie 2025 © Vincent Curutchet / Alea
Class 40 in Galicia, Multi Fifty leaders slowed at the Canaries, IMOCAs tussling. ULTIM charge slowing again.
The Class40 fleet on the TRANSAT CAFÉ L'OR are filing into La Coruña, led this morning by Corentin Douguet and Axel Tréhin (SNSM, Faites un don) at a little after 0800hrs UTC. By mid afternoon nearly half of the 42 boat fleet had crossed the line, all happy to be taking mandatory shelter from an incoming storm.
In the Ocean Fifty class there was a change of lead this morning as Basile Bourgnon and Emmanuel Le Roch (Edenred 5) outsmarted their rivals on Wewise momentarily at the Canary Islands. But Pierre Quiroga and Gaston Morvan, long time leaders, were back ahead this afternoon only by less than one nautical mile.
The new pacesetter in the IMOCA class is Jérémie Beyou and Morgan Lagravière (Charal) who have grown their margin today, as had Tom Laperche and Franck Cammas who were making 40 knots in the lead of the ULTIM race on SVR Lazartigue passing west of the Canaries at the same time as the Ocean Fiftys were passing to the east.
CLASS 40s
Corentin Douguet and Axel Tréhin (SNSM, Faites un don!), winners of the Normandy Channel Race and the Rolex Fastnet this year on their new Lombard Lift 3 design, narrowly pipped Guillaume Pirouelle and Cedric Chateau (Seafrigo-Sogestran) to the line by a matter of 21 minutes. About the same distance behind was Achille Nebout and Gildas Mahé (Amarris). Douguet was pleased to be in first, "Overall no damage to the boat, we won, what more could you ask for? I'm delighted to be in La Coruña; I have nothing but good memories here, from my first Bay of Biscay cruise when I was very young to being in here first to this port I came to almost 20 years ago now." His co-skipper Tréhin said, "The first 24 hours were tough; we weren't used to the sea yet. These conditions really take you by surprise. It will be much easier to leave from here for the Caribbean than it was to leave from up there." In fourth were the Spanish duo on VSF Sports, Pep Costa and Pablo Santurde. Costa said, "Fourth is correct for us, we know there is a group of five or six boat which really want to win this race and so we were in this pack and happy to be able to fight this group. It is not easy and we will be trying hard to do even better to Martinique. The first part of the English Channel was not as we expected and we had some little issues. Our option was not as good as we had wanted and so we paid a little but we were super good on Biscay, we had a good attitude on there and were going fast." Italian duo Andrea Fornaro and Alessandro Torresani (Influence 2) were 17th in.
IMOCA
The IMOCA lead changed last night as Charal's strategy entering the downwind conditions on the west side of a low pressure paid off.
Beyou and Lagravière were 16 nautical miles ahead of Italian flagged Allagrande MAPEI of Ambrogio Beccaria and Thomas Ruyant with Sam Goodhild and Loïs Berrehar a further eight miles behind on MACIF Santé Prévoyance.
The leading four have set up in two pairs, to the east Charal and MAPEI and 30 miles to the west MACIF and Frankie Clapcich and Will Harris (11th Hour Racing).
Goodchild reported this afternoon, "It is all going fairly well, obviously we are not leading any more which is not ideal but we are not far behind. There was a lot of manoeuvres going around this depression off the coast of Portugal, trying to get as close to it without falling into the no wind zone in the middle but still trying to reduce the distance sailed and to get to windshift first. So the seastate was not too bad but it is building now. We lost a few miles which is frustrating and our big downwind sail fell in the water which meant we were stopped for 40 minutes, not ideal, so we had to get that going. But, all good, we have to fix the halyard at the top of the rig when we get a minute when it is light. The next 24 hours is heading south, we have set up to the west of MAPEI and Charal - or they set up to the east of us...so we are heading south to get to the next high pressure ridge at the Canaries before heading across the Atlantic. So, generally, wind dropping sea state dropping and we will be trying to pick our way through the next ridge."
ULTIM
Passing west of the Canaries today, it seems like every time the ULTIMs get to unleash their fearsome speeds they are soon slowed again by light winds and transitions.
That will certainly be the case for the foreseeable future even if Tom Laperche the young skipper of SVR Lazartigue was rejoicing at doing 40 knots with a beautiful sunrise and much more favourable temperatures. Laperche and Franck Cammas have 35 miles in hand over Thomas Coville and Benjamin Schwarz on Sodebo Ultim 3. Armel Le Cléac'h and Seb Josse have made up nearly 90 miles on the leaders on Banque Populaire XI and will get the chance to reduce their 188 miles deficit more when the leading ULTIMS slow in the next ridge.
OCEAN FIFTY
Lighter winds to the east of the Canaries have slowed the march of the Ocean Fifty leaders and now there is less than 12 miles between leaders Wewise and third placed Thibault Vauchel Camus and Damien Seguin on Solidaires en Peloton.
Find out more at www.transatcafelor.org and track the fleet here.