52nd La Solitaire du Figaro Stage 3 Day 2
After spending most of the second afternoon at sea since leaving Fécamp yesterday shadow boxing with the 20 miles northerly perimeter of the Casquets Traffic Separation Scheme, the leaders on Stage 3 of La Solitaire were taking a much sharper southerly slant in search of the forecast stronger easterly breeze that is expected to roll back up to them from the French coast during the latter part of today, Monday.
All of the top skippers who spoke on the VHF today admitted their original strategy was to go south of this almost square exclusion zone that lies north east of Alderney, but it seems like no one was bold enough to break for the south on what was a not very appetising angle.
It was left to Tanguy Le Turqais (Quéguiner Innoveo), the young Catalan rookie Pep Costa (Cybele Vacances-Team Play To B) and Italian American Francesca Clapcich (Fearless – State Street Marathon Sailing) to lead a group of six round the south of the no go zone. They were making three knots faster than the leaders and pointing more directly towards Land’s End, the next waypoint on the 624 miles course to Morlaix Bay via a mark off the southwestern most tip of Wales.
Xavier Macaire (Groupe SNEF) – winner of the first leg and second overall – has led since the turn at South Pullar mark at around 2230hrs last night. Race leader Pierre Quiroga (Skipper Macif 2019) was leading but chose not to make the early gybe at the mark which is to the east of the isle of Wight, and lost out to Macaire and others, lying fourth this afternoon at 1.2 miles.
Racing in warm, sunny conditions the leading peloton of ten boats is tightly packed, constantly benchmarking themselves against each other. Conditions are easy – warm and sunny with six to eight knots of breeze and the prospect of carrying big spinnakers all the way to Land’s End where they should reach early tomorrow morning.
Britain’s Alan Roberts (Seacat Services) made an excellent start to the leg and was approaching South Pullar in second position after Macaire but got caught in the bunch as the fleet compacted in the strong contrary tide and very light winds. He is still nicely in contact with the main group in 17th but two miles back from the leading line. Correspondingly Ireland’s Tom Dolan (Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan) came back from the very depths of the fleet on Sunday afternoon’s reach across the English Channel to wriggle up to seventh on this morning’s light winds run but he is 14th at three miles behind Macaire.
