Crowning glory

ULTIM: SVR’S date with destiny

At 1300hrs UTC ULTIM leaders Tom Laperche and Franck Cammas (SVR Lazartigue) had less than 300 miles to the finish line and were averaging just over 25 knots. Even given the possibility of the usual shut down in the breeze the first finisher on this 17 th TRANSAT CAFÉ l’OR should be across the finish line before midnight UTC. They had more than 175 nautical miles of a lead. As the French duo surge towards victory there will be no let up in their attack. The duo have sailed a textbook race. It should be Laperche’s first win on the Coffee Route race after twice finishing second into Martinique with skipper François Gabart. And Cammas will become the first sailor to win the race five times.

OCEAN FIFTY: a final sprint to the line will decide it

The lead has changed again at the front of the Ocean Fifty fleet with Pierre Quiroga and Gaston Morvan (Wewise) seizing a small 5 miles advantage ahead of Baptiste Hulin and Thomas Rouxel (Viablis Océans) who led earlier this morning. With less than 25 miles between first and third - the Franco British Luke Berry and French co-skipper Antoine Joubert (Le Rire Medecin Lamotte) - the
Ocean Fifty race will surely go to the final miles of the course. The winners are expected to finish tomorrow afternoon UTC.
Viablis Océans, a project run since 2023 by Louis Burton’s Saint Malo based BE Racing, held the lead overnight and this morning. 28 year old skipper Baptiste Hulin is an ex match race champion who said on the early vacs, “The trade winds are starting to get more unstable as we approach the islands. Things are getting more complicated. And what's more, well, we're in the lead, so we're the first to get sail into these weather systems. There are big stormy cloud cells surrounded by squalls moving around in your path. So, it's not easy to slalom through them.”
 

Asked to reflect on their enforced pitstop in L’Aber Wrac’h to repair their torn mainsail early in the race, Hulin said this morning, “We are living the race to the fullest, so we haven't had much time to reflect on everything that's happened since the start. But I've been hearing more and more about it since we took the lead and are approaching the finish. It is true that we started 140 miles behind the leaders. We were up to 200 miles behind at one point, when they reached the Canary Islands and we were still sailing along the coast of Portugal. So, yeah, it's definitely crazy right now. To be in the lead now is crazy. As I said yesterday, taking the lead from Edenred due to damage is something I don't appreciate, but hey, it's part of the game. You have to accept it.”

IMOCA Charal are the class act

The first IMOCA should finish Saturday and the favourites for the title remain Jérémie Beyou and Morgan Lagravière (Charal) who continue to display a noted speed edge. Over the last 24 hours the black hulled IMOCA made nearly 40 miles more than the second and third placed Macif Santé Prévoyance and 11 th Hour Racing and had built their margin to nearly 75 miles.
But Beyou cautioned, “We're giving it our all to try and build as big a lead as possible because we know very well that if you get stuck under a cloud, a 30-mile lead can be ruined in an hour. So, with those boats going 30 knots, in two hours they'll be slowing down to 10 knots, while the other one behind is at 25 or 30. You don't need to be a mathematician to know that the rankings can be turned
upside down with boats like this.”

Both British co-skippers, Goodchild on Macif and Harris on 11 th Hour, who both cut their teeth in the Figaro class on the Artemis Academy talent identification and training programme, are racing within 20 miles or so of each other, in third Harris noted, “The sea state is really tricky, making it hard to keep the boat going fast all the time, always adjusting trimming, trying to steer it around the waves, we are keeping it quite full on there is certainly no sitting back. We will be finding more wind over the next few days, we have had 15-20 we should see more like 18 to 23. so the last few days should be quite windy to take us into the finish which will be nice. I think we are close together and it is really a boatspeed race to the finish. There are small little gains to be made if you make a nice gybe, or if you get a good angle, but it is obvious that Charal has been the fastest that is why they have been ahead. So the podium will be decided on who is fastest and who can push hardest.”
 

Goodchild reflects, “The wind is quite unstable going up and down and shifting left and right and so we are trying to make the most of every gust, and so also picking where we want to gybe as there will be a few gybes before we get to Martinique it is not a straight line. So we have to pick where to do them and at the same time trying to avoid the squall clouds, which come with the wind. And so you try to hit them in the right place, we got a couple last night. We are trying to keep up with Charal who are going quick downwind, we are not giving up and we are being chased hard by 11 th Hour and Mapei and wo we are trying to hold them off which is easier said than done. We need to keep going fast whilst at the same time eating and sleeping on a boat which is not comfortable for anyone. You need to move around as little as possible as you can easily hurt yourself.”

Class 40, a long way to go

The top six duos, according to the distance to the finish, are all taking the ‘north face’ route, climbing upwind over the low pressure systems trying to finally find some fast downwind sailing. Consistent leaders remain Corentin Douguet and Axel Trehin (SNSM Faites un Donne) who have now eked out more than 21 miles on Fabien Delahaye and Pierre Leboucher (Legallais). Douguet, who was involved in the development of his new Lombard Lift v3 launched this year, said this morning, “Last night was really tough; it was a bit of a compromise. We had to try not to go too fast, so as not to break anything, but at a certain point, those boats just don't want to make headway, so we still went relatively fast. It's calmed down now, just in the last hour or so. The wind dropped suddenly; otherwise, it was quite a challenging night.”
 

The Spanish duo Pep Costa and Pablo Santurde have discovered some damage to their VSF Sports, a longitudinal structure by the keel box. Lying sixth they were contemplating a pit stop of some description having had discussions with the designers and builders of their Musa 40 which won this race in 2023.
Two solutions are available to them, repair at sea in a sheltered location or make a stopover in Santa Maria, an island located southeast of the Azores archipelago, which would not be a major detour for the VSF Sports duo.

"These two options are under consideration. If we can make the necessary repairs at sea, we will choose that option. Otherwise, we will make a pit stop in Santa Maria, which we will reach in about twenty hours (Thursday, November 6, between 6:00 and 9:00 UTC), where we have contacts waiting for us. We will have to respect the mandatory four-hour stop as indicated in the race instructions: time to let the fiberglass dry before resuming the race," Pep Costa told his team late this morning.