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COSTA RICA |
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The
Race Is On
Fast sailing and inky darkness marked the
start of the first night of the Transat
Jacques Vabre (TJV) transatlantic race, as
one of the most competitive IMOCA 60 fleets
ever set off from Le Havre, France on their
way to Limón, Costa Rica, on November 20.
After days of rain, wind and even hail
storms, the waters off Le Havre offered the
20 crews setting off on the ninth edition of
the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre
relatively benign conditions as they headed
down the Channel, making west and south from
the autumnal chills of Northern Europe for
the sun of Costa Rica.
The slate grey clouds threatened menacingly
on the distant horizons, but there were
shards of sunshine momentarily slanting from
the dark skies, as if on special order by
the 14 crews of the IMOCA Open 60's. If
indeed they had a hotline to the weather
gods they would doubtless have requested a
little more breeze. But then, knowing that
ahead the conditions over this first week,
will certainly be complex, and even as one
British skipper described them potentially
‘fruity', a gentle start was probably
welcomed.
And for all that the six Multi 50's have a
theoretical 5050 NM's to complete, leaving
Barbados to starboard, and the 14 IMOCA Open
60's have 4730 miles to Costa Rica, leaving
the Dominican Republic to starboard, no one
was shy about pushing it on the start lines.
Appropriately, as leading lights in the
class, in the multihulls Franck Yves
Escoffier and Erwan Leroux were the first
break the start line of this edition, easing
away under gennaker in the 7-9 knots of
breeze, picking up pace to forge through the
sloppy, leftover sea and the spectator boat
wakes. IAstern for the first few minutes,
their rivals jostled with all the vigour of
an intense, weekend afternoon inshore
regatta.
The IMOCA Open 60's pushed harder to their
start gun. Kito de Pavant and Francois
Gabart on Groupe Bel were the first to
unroll their gennaker, early for the line.
Forced to scrub off speed to make the
leeward end of the start line, they broke to
the left early. Dee Caffari and Brian
Thompson proved they are out to give this
course their all, and made a nicely timed
start at the windward end of the line, with
Seb Josse and Jean Francois Cuzon on BT in
the middle of the lineup with Marc Guillemot
and Charles Caudrelier urging Safran across,
all virtually at the same time.
A complex weather scenario awaits. Fast
reaching conditions in a NW'ly breeze were
due to give way to variable, light wind
conditions of a high pressure ridge for the
first full day at sea. Strategically there
still seemed to be the option of staying
north and fighting winds of perhaps over 40
knots on the front of the first of a series
of depressions which will track across the
North Atlantic, or prudently to head south
early and try and breach the lighter breezes
of the first part of the Azores high
pressure system first.
Mike Golding, starting his sixth Transat
Jacques Vabre on his unsponsored Mike
Golding Yacht Racing explained: 'The breeze
will slowly back round to the left as the
day reaches its end and overnight, then
dropping quite light. Then it will keep
going left until we are in SW'ly flow. Then
we push to the west and fa ront which is
quite active comes through. We will be
tacking on to starboard and heading south.
The question is when to tack south. That
will be the difficult call. My feeling is we
have to cross the high ridge and so you
might as well get on and do it and not risk
anything in the north. The isobars are very
close together. The systems are active.
'The further you go down the track and it is
a typical scenario where the rich may well
get richer further down the track. If that
high ridge fills in front of us though, the
race might re-start again and everything we
do up here might be for nothing.'
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