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ULTIM: The Rematch

120 miles faster in 24 hours! Even though the fastest since yesterday has been Actual Ultim 4, which took advantage of a more northerly wind to cover 705 miles in a single day on a straight line course, the most threatening boat this morning is Sodebo Ultim 3, which has more than halved its deficit to SVR Lazartigue. "We haven't been holding back since the start with Thomas, and we're going to keep giving it our all!" said Benjamin Schwartz this morning during the radio check-in. "The gap might tighten again after the return leg through the Doldrums, which we've just entered, but we're staying alert."
All day yesterday, the two leading trimarans made numerous gybes along the restricted zone bordering the coasts of Brazil and French Guiana. A tense sailing situation, which Thomas Coville's teammate describes very well: "With the J0 sheeted in fully, you're always on the edge. When the boat starts to heel, there's a risk of capsizing, but you delay the activation of the anti-capsize system, which eases the mainsail, as much as possible, because otherwise it's five minutes on the pedestal grinding it back.”

Significantly less active than the Doldrums on the outward leg, the ICTZ is currently allowing SVR Lazartigue and Sodebo Ultim 3 to continue making good progress at an average speed of over 25 knots, "even if the squalls seem to be shifting and growing towards the North," says Benjamin, who hopes to be back in the meteorological Northern Hemisphere "in about ten hours." 

They will then have less than a thousand miles to go on one tack, or almost, for a final showdown before the finish, still scheduled for Thursday evening.

Ocean Fifty: The harsh reality of a mechanical sport

It takes next to nothing to seize up the machines when they are pushed to this level. While Edenred still seemed to be the undisputed leader of this Coffee Route race last night, gybing first and followed by the entire fleet, the red rocket slowed down a few hours later… Disaster struck! The spinnaker pole (the pole attached to the aft beam) that allows the large gennaker to be sheeted in exploded around midnight. Emmanuel Le Roch recounts in a voice message sent to his team: “Breaking under pressure, it ripped through the rudder connecting bar. We freed it, cut it, and made a sleeve from the seaweed pole, which is also carbon fiber, which we glued and screwed in place. We set off again with the J.05 (the gennaker for the mainsheet) on a starboard tack. We’re really gutted, but that’s how it is…”

On this leg, which will be sailed 80% of the time until the finish, Edenred 5 can no longer sail under the big gennaker, which gives max power and max speed and therefore a better downwind angle… It will only be able to use this key sail on short gybes to the south, and its chances of victory, or even a podium finish, are vanishing…
Viabilis Oceans, which took the lead overnight, is now sailing three knots faster than yesterday’s leader. Baptiste Hulin and Thomas Rouxel now have Wewise as their closest competitor, 16 miles behind them, slightly to their north. The duo, who stopped in the English Channel the day after the start, have made a superb comeback, taking advantage of the leaders slowing down between Madeira and the Canary Islands. Having been in the hunt for nearly 10 days, Baptiste and Thomas will now have to defend their lead over the remaining 1,000 miles! ETA Thursday night/Friday morning.

IMOCA: Very high pace

They're faster downwind than the Ocean Fifties! Averaging over 25 knots, Jéremie Beyou and Morgan Lagravière on Charal continue to set a blistering pace at the head of the fleet, covering more than 600 miles yesterday. But behind them, no one is giving up. Team Snef-TeamWork, an older generation boat (2018), hasn’t managed to hold this pace over the last 24 hours in these conditions and may also have a minor technical issue…

And so the top four are still close Francesca Clapcich and Will Harris on 11th Hour Racing and Ambrogio Beccaria and Thomas Ruyant on Allagrande Mapei in a positive position. There are outsiders in the mix, and a big battle is shaping up between Charal and Macif Santé Prévoyance. These two are only 25 miles apart, an hour's delta at the current speed of the IMOCAs. Macif Santé Prévoyance is sailing with a slightly higher angle than Charal, which sails downwind better, so when they're on the same tack, this creates small lateral differences. Jérémie Beyou knows this well but stated this morning during the radio check-in that he wasn't "measuring the progress of the others,"focused on the performance of his IMOCA. "It's very ambivalent. You have to go for it because it's a brute-force approach to make the boat sail like this, and at the same time, here you have to be very precise in choosing your trajectory."

So, will they gybe or not? "That's the question of the day! Some models say we should have already gybed, others say to wait." “I’m right in the thick of it with the file loading, which underestimates the trade winds but is still quite reliable. To the right (north), you’re playing the wind shift, to the left (south), you have a bit more pressure, you have to take that into account,” said Jérémie, a seasoned veteran, without revealing too much. The skipper of Charal certainly had a clear head and a noticeably calmer voice than the day before at the same time. “Despite the high speeds, we were able to get back into the rhythm of the watches with Morgan. We alternate every two hours because the body needs to relax.”

Class40: Behind the front, options!

Class40 are only halfway between Spain and the Azores, and for now, it’s a tough race for the Class40s. Upwind, upwind, and more upwind. The first significant weather front in the small monohull race was passed last night, and the vast majority of the fleet quickly turned south, taking a breather, picking up speed, and relieving the pressure. This presented a perfect opportunity for the SNSM-supported boat to push the pace again by quickly heading west to meet a second front expected tonight, beyond which the situation should become clearer. Resilient and confident in their ability at this speed, Corentin Douguet and Axel Tréhin are leading the fleet, followed only by Legallais (Fabien Delahaye-Pierre Leboucher) and VSF Sports (Pep Costa and Pablo Santurde). To the south, the bulk of the fleet is led by the Norman duo Guillaume Pirouelle and Cédric Château on Seafrigo-Sogestran. "It's true that I'm surprised not to see more boats heading west," Corentin said this morning. “Last night, we had winds up to 40-42 knots and lightning everywhere; it was beautiful and quite violent at the same time. But now the wind has dropped to 12-15 knots, it’s much calmer, and that’s good if our closest pursuers are heading towards the ‘highway to the sun’ because I think the best course is towards the Azores.”

‘The ‘motorway to the sun’—is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s clearly a separation of the fleet that’s taking place this morning. Whatever their position on the Atlantic chessboard, the Class40s shouldn’t expect to hoist a spinnaker before the end of the week. On the other hand, the southerners will escape the worst of the front tonight and, above all, will experience less sea state than the northerners. Will the latter be able to maintain their speed polars without breaking in these conditions, where the models are predicting waves of more than 5 meters behind the front at the latitude of Punta Delgada? Answer tomorrow during the day.