QUIROGA TAKES SOLID ADVANTAGE IN TO STAGE 3 OF THE 52ND LA SOLITAIRE DU FIGARO
Stage 3 of the 52nd La Solitaire du Figaro starts at midday Sunday and will take the 34 solo racers a marathon 624 nautical miles from Fécamp to the Bay of Morlaix. The route opens with a reach to a mark east of the Isle of Wight before climbing north at Land’s End to cross the mouth of the Bristol Channel, passing Lundy island, to round a buoy at Saint Gowan – south of Milford Haven, Wales – then back past the Scilly Isles to the finish off the popular north Breton port.
With the prevailing winds still from the east this third stage of four does look like another speed stage, reaching and downwind running whilst fully observing the strong tides in the English Channel and then the Bristol Channel.
According to many of the top racers this could be another ‘rich get richer’ stage where the advantage of getting out of the lighter winds under the huge cliffs of Fecamp and the Alabaster Coast will increase on the 70 miles across the Channel to the South Pullar mark.
From the midday start the leaders should round this turn at South Pullar – five miles SW of Selsey Bill – at dusk. Then Monday is a long 200 miles downwind to Land’s End passing the Longships Lighthouse. It is a 105 miles reach during Tuesday morning and afternoon to the Welsh mark which is the first time the Figaro fleet has turned here. The return reach under Code Zero or J2 headsail is open with no marks of the course other than the Scillies observing only the TSS zones.
General Classification leader Pierre Quiroga (Skipper Macif 2019) starts in a very strong position with a time advantage of one hour and 36 minutes over second placed Xavier Macaire (Groupe SNEF) who in turn is just 13 seconds up on Tom Laperche (CMB Bretagne Performance). But there is then a gap of nearly one hour to the fourth placed veteran Gildas Mahe (Breizh Cola).
Quiroga, the 28 year old from Hyères who is on his sixth La Solitaire du Figaro starts with little pressure. He has already achieved one of his goals when he won Stage 2 and so ticked off that career target. He has good allround speed and twice underlined his free thinking philosophy and confidence, breaking from the peloton to increase extend his lead into Fécamp.
But as was made clear on the second stage from Lorient to Fecamp no skipper is immune to technical failures nor bad luck. Macaire, Stage 1 winner, suffered a double whammy when his navigation computer crashed during the wet, windy and bumpy upwind stage round the top of Brittany and then hooked a fish pot round his keel. From a 47 minutes 15 seconds lead 40 year old Macaire slumped to 14th on Stage 2, two hours and 24 minutes after Quiroga.
On the eve of leaving Fécamp Macaire said. “It is not over yet, far from it. I have done the same thing as before the first and the second legs. I have refocused, I am concentrated and we prepared the boat. I also spoke with my mental trainer to tackle the third stage in the best way possible by not focusing on the past but rather focusing on the future. We’re only halfway there, the goal is to get it right until the end. The stopover here has been long enough here in Fécamp, we had three full days of rest, which allowed me to recover well because the first two stages were hard, physical, intense. We were upwind a lot and the boat is not very comfortable in these conditions, it is physically demanding, heeling, slamming wet a lot. Now I feel ready to start again and this rest will be useful for the whole end of the race. This is important because there are two big pieces left before the final arrival in Saint Nazaire and which will follow one another quite quickly. The end of the race will be intense.”
