Italy’s Ambrogio Beccaria and French co-skippr Nicolas Andrieu, who were tipped as favourites pre-start, are leading Class40 as they have done more or less since the first mark off Le Havre yesterday. They had a margin of around six miles with just under 80 miles to sail to Lorient, where the Class 40s will join the Ocean Fifty fleet sheltering. They expected into Lorient around midnight.
Beccaria reported this morning, “We have a few problems with our satellite antenna. We hope to get that sorted, before the race starts again. This leg was short but very intense. We had a fantastic start. Probably the best I have ever seen with boats flying at 20 knots. But after that it was very hard. We had to keep changing tack in 30-knot winds. But I’m pleased as I had seen before in the Fastnet we could do well in these conditions, but here with the whole fleet, it was great. We both have a few minor injuries. Stacking at the bow is a wild affair. I banged my knee when bringing down the J1. Nico banged his ribs and legs against the bulkhead.”
Britons Brian Thomson and Alister Richardson on Tquila were 19th, struggling after a crack developed in their water ballast tanks rendering them unusable and flooding the inside of the boat.
Thomson said this morning, “It was an exciting start and we had a great start. There were some problems at the mark because I suppose for some people two handed you just can’t tack very quickly, especially in that wind and sea. It is shame about the boats which had to go back I hope they get back into the race. It was really windy off the west end of the Cherbourg peninsula, with 40 kts of wind, and half an hour before that we were under Code Zero in 15kts going. So we had a lot of sail changes to do. Alderney was windy again. We went north there and it was OK. Our big problem is our ballast tanks started leaking and Al had to be down below for an hour pumping out all the water from the ballast which had leaked out. So we could not tack because if the boat had gone level it would have flooded the engine with that much water in the boat. Since then we have not been able to use our ballast tanks at all. We are in the group which is fine, there is bright sunshine, 20kts of wind and it is quite warm.”
Class 40 SEAFRIGO SOGESTRAN aiming to repair
The crew of the Class 40 SEAFRIGO SOGESTRAN, Guillaume Pirouelle and Cédric Chateau are aiming to bring their damaged boat to Lorient, where a number of experts are ready to do what is required to allow the boat to continue the race. A collision between the two Class40 boats, SEAFRIGO SOGESTRAN and CAFE JOYEUX at the coastal marker buoy yesterday at around 1300hrs UTC led to a 90cm x 50cm hole in the forward starboard section of the hull.
“Thanks to the work done by all of our teams and the fantastic support shown by APICIL’s shore team, we were quickly able to evaluate the damage and get organised. We still hope to get back in the race and are not giving up,” said the crew. A transporter is due to arrive at shed 43 to load the boat today. The team still awaits the necessary authorisations for this trip. Following the collision, a protest was lodged with the jury, which will examine the case
