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Les Class40 à Lorient
© Vincent Curutchet / Alea
Class40
Édition 2023 31 October 2023 - 18h04

Internationals on the dock in Lorient

Brian Thompson and Alister Richardson, 17th on Tquila, “We had a good start. Entering the Alderney Race the wind got quite extreme and really tested ourselves and the boat. And so I am glad the mast is still in the boat considering the slamming. After we passed there we noticed that the ballast tanks had emptied into the boat. Luckily we noticed that before we tacked or it would have flooded the electronics, so we managed to empty it but then we had no ballast on for the rest of the race, that has cost us some time. But to have got through this first leg and only be an hour and eight minutes in the grand scheme of things that is not too bad. It is not a big deal and a lot of miles to go, so we are overall pretty pleased.

 
We had up to 40kts at times, big seas with wind against tide, and hence damage on the other boats. Tactically it was very interesting to see how all the Figaro sailors in the fleet played all the corners and the tidal advantages. Considering we had no ballast we could have been half an hour quicker. We are in the peloton, that’s great.”

Young German duo Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink were 23rd on Sign For Com: “We snapped a couple of electrical cables and so lost our wind data and from then on it was hard. Sometimes we drove around like blind chickens. It was like a witches cauldron at times. But the boat is in good shape and well proven so we know we can step on the gas in the next leg.” 

Pam Lee (IRL) ENGIE, DFDS BRITTANY FERRIES 27t: “It was good for us to get this finished, it was a bit of a test run in a way and we came through it with the us and the boat in good shape. But the conditions were insane, really insane. But now we can refocus on the main bit of the race. I would like to have been a few places further up the table but we had computer problems. The mouse failed and we did not seem to have the spare. And then the keyboard so we ended up with Navionics and Windy. So we did not push it close to the coast and the rocks. It was pretty stressful at times and on that last morning we had a big gust over 40kts and blew the A4 kite.
 

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