FR
EN
Foilers have taken the speeds up, as they can now really fly. But we should not forget the best boats with daggerboards. There were after all 16 of them in the 40 competitors setting off from Le Havre.
A rookie winner in this category
Aboard Monnoyeur Duo For a Job, a VPLP-Verdier design from 2010, winner of the 2012 Vendée Globe with François Gabart, Benjamin Ferré won this race between the boats with daggerboards. First of the non-foilers, she won thanks to her option to the North ahead of more recent boats fitted with foils. With his co-skipper, Pierre Le Roy, he managed to get the most out of his boat, sailing upwind between the fronts and low-pressure systems.
Le Roy stresses the fact that it encouraged them when close to other boats like Louis Duc’s Fives Group - Lantana Environnement that was chasing after them. Louis Duc could not hide his pleasure at finishing in this position. “There are about six foilers still behind us. We wanted to be on the podium of non-foilers and we have done it. Conditions were tough. Passing through the front was incredible – gusts, heavy seas, great light. A memory that will stay with us. When things got better, that’s when we flooded the generator. So it’s not always in the worst weather that things go wrong. It’s rare you have such space around you to speed in such conditions. This is really a fantastic fleet with so many strong competitors.”
Let us not forget the third boat in the fleet of non-foilers freelance.com skippered by Guirec Soudée and Roland Jourdain, aboard the old Farr design from 2007, which won the 2010 Route du Rhum. They are expected to finish on Tuesday afternoon. “We are completing a fantastic Transat Jacques Vabre after a postponed start, groups with various options, impossible battles with our friend Freelance and the old hen, Bilou. Our boats with daggerboards are not over yet,” added Louis Duc.
3 out of the 16 boats with daggerboards have retired - Stand As One, Oliver Heer Ocean Racing and Be Water Positive.
