17th Transat Café L'or Day 5: Into the Blue

by Transat Café L'OR 30 Oct 10:15 PDT 30 October 2025

While the ULTIM race leader Tom Laperche and Franck Cammas (SVR Lazartigue) are opening distance all the time on their pursuers, now into the trade winds and averaging 31 knots this afternoon, not far behind them are the Ocean Fifty class which is slaloming down the African coast in a narrow band of pressure, avoiding the lighter airs to the west.

The IMOCA race has slowed right down into single figures, 10 knots or less, as they negotiate a wide band of light winds before the Canary Islands. Briton Sam Goodchild celebrated his French co-skipper Loïs Berrehar's 32nd birthday by taking the lead back from Charal last night and holding it all day - the top duo racing within sight of each other, 180 nautical miles NNW of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands which they must leave to their right. And in La Coruña NW Spain, rest and repairs are the order of the day for the 35 Class 40s which are now harboured there making ready for a probable Saturday re-start.

ULTIM

SVR Lazartigue are very much enjoying the rich get richer scenario as they profit from the building trade winds to be over 200 nautical miles ahead of Thomas Coville and Benjamin Schwarz on Sodebo Ultim 3. After making something of a comeback on the leaders yesterday Armel Le Cléac'h and Seb Josse have not had it as good on Banque Populaire XI. Forced to pitstop in Lorient for five hours to replace a rudder, they are still in the hight pressure the IMOCAs are just entering. Although the tracker suggest they are 40 odd miles behind Actual, it is more like 150 as they still have to work east. Le Cléac'h said today, "We're trying to find the trade winds along the African coast. We'll probably head near Mauritania, likely cross the Cape Verde archipelago before taking a more conventional route towards the equator. The low-pressure system to our north is making the trade winds weak. It's a rather atypical situation, far from the usual pattern we're used to."

Winner of the last race with Josse he added, "We're definitely back at 100%! The race was completely back on for us, and it made us want to give it our all." Even when there's no wind, we try to push the boat as far as possible, maneuvering to gain a few extra miles. The boat is in good condition, so we can take advantage of that. We take turns, we find our rhythm. It's starting to get a bit warmer too, so we change our clothes, put away the fleeces and hats, and bring out the t-shirts!"The technical team managed to quickly install a rudder and repair everything. With everyone's expertise, we know the boat was well repaired. Everyone rallied around before coming to cheer us on, so we want to live up to expectations. We want to show this motivation on the water at every moment. The road to Martinique is still long, and we know firsthand that there's still a lot to play for. We hope to have that extra bit of luck that will allow us to get back in the race!"

OCEAN FIFTY

Basile Bourgnon and Manu Le Roch (Edenred 5) are still leading the Ocean Fifty race but the passage through this high pressure, light winds zone allowed the chasing pack to close right up and so although Edenred are 16 nautical miles ahead, the top five are now within 30 miles of each other. And their routing has kept them very close - three or four miles at times - off the African coast.

IMOCA

The top five in the IMOCA fleet are also with 30 miles of each other as they make the most of the light winds to the Canaries. Whilst Goodchild and Berrehar profited from staying west yesterday coming back with more pressure and a better angle they are speed testing alongside Charal this afternoon. Ironically Goodchild and Berrehar are back alongside the skipper who might be considered the Brit's nemesis, Béyou, who he has spent days locked in match race battles with. The Italian-American British duo Frankie Clapcich and Will Harris are third, now nine miles ahead of Italian Ambrogio Beccaria and double winner Thomas Ruyant on Allegrande Mapei.

Clapcich was on great form today, again underlining how she and Harris are determined to sail their own strategies, "We are passing Maderia and even now we have quite light winds and we will have more light winds and a transition approaching the Canary Islands. There it will be challenging but hopefully after that we will really do our best to find the best approach the trade winds. So far we are pretty happy, we definitely had some tough conditions for the first 24 hours, we had a pretty good plan in mind before even leaving the dock and that was really important. Will did a really great job in the week before the start making sure everything was perfectly placed and it really played off. Both of us know the boat and we were really able to push. So far so good. I am happy with the way we are able to manage the boat. I think overall we are trying to find the fastest angles of us and our boat to approach the Canaries and then we still always need to focus on ourselves, our boat, our modes. All the boats are different, we have our strengths and weaknesses. So far we have been good at following our own beliefs. Of course we are very happy to check the tracker every hour but we are not going to make drastic decisions based on what someone else is doing."

Her Italian compatriot, Beccaria, racing his new IMOCA with Ruyant, is objective after making an error last night, "The first few days were really good as we managed to make a really nice race in terms of both speed and strategy, but the last 12 hours our option did not pay at all but I think we had a little bit of bad luck, but we cannot talk always about luck in sailing because if you do you will always do that, but it was a little hard to see our friends pass in the west. Now is not our best moments of the race so far but we are in very good shape. The most important thing now is to have in mind (for the high pressure ridge) to try to stick to the plan because when you are in the middle of something like that, it can be very shifty and light so you have to stick to your plan, do easy stuff very well. It is not very clear but we will make our plan in the next few hours. It is wonderful with Thomas, he is so experienced and knows this exercise so well, he is in good shape and I can understand why he has won this race twice. He is very relaxed and so was I at the start which was so different, at the start I am always stressed because of the conditions and so having Thomas is amazing."

On his first IMOCA race, Japan's Masa Suzuki is racing with Louis Duc on FIVES Group Lantana Environnement which he will take on after the race as he journeys towards the next Vendée Globe. They were 12th this afternoon, 12 miles behind the best daggerboard boat, Café Joyeux. Suzukiraced this race in 2021 on a Class40 and the last Globe40 race round the world winning three legs, "We are passing Maderia and even now we have quite light winds and we will have more light winds and a transition approaching the Canary Islands. There it will be challenging but hopefully after that we will really do our best to find the best approach the trade winds. So far we are pretty happy, we definitely had some tough conditions for the first 24 hours, we had a pretty good plan in mind before even leaving the dock and that was really important. Will did a really great job in the week before the start making sure everything was perfectly placed and it really played off. Both of us know the boat and we were really able to push. So far so good. I am happy with the way we are able to manage the boat. I think overall we are trying to find the fastest angles of us and our boat to approach the Canaries and then we still always need to focus on ourselves, our boat, our modes. All the boats are different, we have our strengths and weaknesses. So far we have been good at following our own beliefs. Of course we are very happy to check the tracker every hour but we are not going to make drastic decisions based on what someone else is doing."

Class40

It was a tired, but relieved Italian duo Luca Rossetti and Matteo Sericano on Macaferra Futura, who arrived into La Coruña in 36th place at 1341hrs UTC this afternoon, outrunning the worst of the stormy conditions. They had to pitstop early in the race to deal with electrical charging problems on their new Musa 40.

Masa We are in a new wind, upwind which is amazing for us as we are quite fast and I did not know this boat before and it is super nice. These were my first windy days but after the start we pushed the boat and we did well on the first bit. Louis is nice because now we have a good relationship on board we are getting one or two hours sleep at a time each and are sharing the experience, sharing everything on board. I bring a lot of Japanese food, rice dishes, and he brings French freeze dried and it is quite nice, sometimes I share his and he mine. Yesterday I made a bit of a mistake going too close to the coast and we lost a few miles to Café Joyeaux but we are working hard to get back, we will see. Now getting through the high pressure all the GRIB files, the models are different so it is not going to be easy.

Find out more at www.transatcafelor.org and track the fleet here.