At 09 h 14 min and 32 seconds, Charlie Dalin was the first to cross the finish line of the Azimut 48 Hours. He completed the 455-mile race in 1 day 18 hours, 14 minutes at an average speed of 10,75 knots. He covered 596 miles at an average speed of 14,13 knots.
SMOOTH SAILING THAT AUGURS WELL
After his two victories in 2021 and 2022, this is Charlie Dalin’s third success in the Défi Azimut Lorient-Agglomération, which he has won solo for the second time. The skipper of MACIF Santé Prévoyance scored a clean victory in the upwind section of this highly maneuverable 455-mile course, which required speed on all points of sail.
In the right pack right from the start, MACIF Santé Prévoyance made a fine downwind run, a “fantastic” ride on flat seas according to its skipper, who nevertheless confessed to a slight positioning error when winding up at the first waypoint during the night.
But the speed of his Verdier design, enabled Charlie to catch up with the pack on the reaching leg, before clearly establishing himself on the ascent to waypoint 3, which kept the fleet busy for most of yesterday.
Only Charal kept up the pace set by MACIF Santé Prévoyance, clearly ahead of the pack in the upwind medium, controlling the fleet perfectly and building a 6-mile lead as they passed Azimut 3 before tacking downwind to the southwest.
This upwind/downwind passage enabled Le Havre to extend his lead to 10 miles, more than enough to look forward to the end of the race with confidence, even if the light airs of the evening required a certain amount of attention to control the fleet downwind. The final leg of the night, reaching in less than 10 knots, was a mere formality, giving him a clean victory that augurs well for the future, with less than two months to go before the start of the Vendée Globe.
