Transat Jacques Vabre: Class 40 Cavalcade

(December 1, 2013) – The strength and depth of the Class 40 fleet, the biggest and most international of the four classes of the Transat Jacques Vabre, was underlined today as the fourth to eighth placed finishers broke the finish line in steady succession starting just before 0730hrs this Sunday morning, local time, off Itajaí.

After the speedy latest generation boats from Sam Manuard and Botin Partners which monopolised the top three places, nearly 30 hours later it was Watt and Sea, the 2010 build boat which won the last race in 2011, crossing the line for fourth. Yannick Bestaven – sailing this time with Minist and two times Freeride Skiing World Champion Aurérlien Ducroz – lead the chasing peloton home by a matter of 2 hours and 12 minutes ahead of Groupe Picoty (Jean-Christophe Caso – Aymeric Chappellier) with SNCF Geodis (Fabrice Amedeo – Armel Tripon) in turn 1 hour and 19 minutes ahead of Damien Seguin and Yoann Richomme on ERDF – Des Pieds et Des Mains.

The Austrian pro-am duo of entrepreneur Christof Petter and double Olympian and former Volvo race skipper Andreas Hanakamp on the new Tom Humphreys designed 40 Vaquita finished Petter’s first big ocean race some 1 hour and 26 minutes later. Although ERDF had been behind them last night, the French pair on ERDF who were second in 2011, charged past in conditions Hanakamp considered potentially boat (and heart) breaking conditions. With 25 kts of wind and big, unruly unpredictable seas the Austrians chose to stick with their Code Zero and stay safe to finish their race, rather than run any excessive last minute risks.

Themes, debriefs and sentiments on the clammy, drizzly dockside in Itajaí today were all voiced similarly from the tired duos. The pace was relentless among this group who could mostly see that their opportunities to catch the runaway leading trio were always going to be negligible especially on what has mostly proven to be a one way speed course. They spoke of often being within sight of each different boats and of the price paid for a damaged or lost sail, mechanical failure or a small deviation from the conventional strategy.

ERDF Des Pieds et Des Mains, the latest generation 2013 Lombard had lead the attack early on but lost their big spinnaker by Madeira and were then compromised significantly when their hydrogenerator packed up. Such was the ebb and flow of fortunes in this hungry pack. Vaquita, acknowledged by many skippers to be one of the two or three fastest boats in the fleet, rose from 17^th to fourth. But a stop start stop Doldrums passage which saw their course slaloming to lose 60 miles and four places, as well as damaging a key spinnaker, proved frustrating at the time for Petter and Hanakamp, but after the finish Hanakamp was resolutely philosophical:

“These things happen. I told Christof there that people have been suicidal in the Doldrums, so you take that as it comes, but our one mistake was a long tack to the west when we hoped to get some fresh breeze and that cost us dearly. Next time we will do it all differently. But then later on, one big cloud near Recife and to the west was ERDF and to the east Campagne de France. We stopped and both of them went on.”

“We are very confident in our boatspeed. With the team behind us we did a pretty good job, developing boatspeed. In my opinion Tales and this boat are the two fastest on the water. We knew had the right sails for the tight reaching for example and that was an advantage but then everyone sails very well. I think on most of the boats around us there are two professionals and so they don’t give you an easy catch.”

Not unexpectedly the results generally correspond to design and build ages, and crew experience. The 2010 Guillaume Verdier 2010 Watt & Sea-Région Poitou Charentes (Bestaven-Ducroz) in fourth is ahead of the fifth placed 2010 Finot-Conq Groupe Picoty (Caso-Chappellier) and the sixth placed 2008 Lombard design. The 2013 Lombard designed ERDF-Des Pieds et des mains (Seguin-Richomme) was penalised by their problems whilst the eighth placed 2013 Humphreys Vaquita had little time on the water pre-start.

The next boat to finish should be Campagne de France sailed by England’s Miranda Merron partnered by Halvard Mabire who should cross the line later this evening.

Result, Transat Jacques Vabre (Class40’) 1-GDF SUEZ (Sébastien Rogues-Fabien Delahaye): 20d 21h 41’ 25’’ 2-Tales Santander 2014 (Alex Pella-Pablo Santurde): 21d 01h 22’ 15’’ 3-Mare (Jörg Riechers-Pierre Brasseur): 21 03h 21’ 55’’ 4-Watt and Sea-Région Poitou Charentes (Yannick Bestaven-Aurélien Ducroz): 22d 08h 14’ 46’’ 5-Groupe Picoty (Jean-Christophe Caso-Aymeric Chappellier): 22d 10h 26’ 47’’ 6-SNCF Géodis (Fabrice Amédéo-Armel Tripon): 22d 10h 54’ 39’’ 7-ERDF-Des pieds et des mains (Damien Seguin-Yoann Richomme): 22d 12h 14’ 14’’ 8-Vaquita (Christof Petter-Andreas Hanakamp): 22d 13h 39’ 33’’‏

They said:

Yannick Bestaven, skipper Watt and Sea – Poitou Charentes:
“It was a difficult Transat, very tiring, very wearing. There were not many tactical options on these North-South courses. This is a race in which you have to be pushing all the time. We had sustained conditions of often more than 20 knots. Like other competitors, we exploded spinnakers. Fourth place is OK. I do not see how we could have done better given the potential speed of the latest Class40 latest generation (GDF SUEZ, Tales Santander 2014 and Mare). We fought a good fight with Groupe Picoty Group and SNCF Geodis . We got the fourth place and that is like a little win for us.”

Armel Tripon, co- skipper of the Class40 SNCF Geodis:
“We race on a second generation Class40 ‘ and the class has already reached the fifth. There were two races (or three with those of the first generation ) and on pure speed terms we could not match the first three because they were a step up especially with these conditions of strong winds reaching and downwind. And so we finished third in the second division. We were not in the same race.”

Damien Seguin, skipper of the Class40 ‘ ERDF-Des Pieds et Des Mains:
“It was a great race and long straight but it is not just the case that straight lines are the simplest ! It was difficult and very wet… I think we were like most competitors we were penalized by sail damaged and since the Doldrums with our power. We had to steer all the time. That was our challenge, crossing the Atlantic from north to south without a drop of fuel. We proved we could do it, even with only solar panels when our hydro- generator broke down. On the water, there were several battles, the latest with the Austrians Vaquita. It was intense because nobody let anything go.”

Andreas Hanakamp, co-skipper, Vaquita:
“We had to catch some more boats but the other guys are sailing very, very well. I think there are two professionals on most of the boats around us, so they don’t give you an easy catch. This is the pinnacle of Christof’s racing career so far. We broke the A2 spinnaker quite early in the race which was quite frustrating, and we decided to keep that quiet, during the Doldrums I started repairing it and in the end it lasted in 20kts so that was OK.”

See latest postions for the fleets:
http://www.transat-jacques-vabre.com/fr/classement

2011 Title Defenders

Monohull 60′:
Virbac-Paprec
Jean-Pierre DICK & Jérémie BEYOU
15days 18h 15min 54sec

Multihull 50′:
Actual
Yves LE BLEVEC & Samuel MANUARD
17days 17h 7min 43sec

Class 40′:
Aquarelle.com
Yannick BESTAVEN & Éric DROUGLAZET
21days 17h 59min 8sec

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For any queries please contact:
Hélène Tzara – helene.tzara@tjv2013.org – +33 (0)6 10 18 80 90