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I crossed the finish line on Thursday the 4th of October
at 6:30 pm GMT. Entering the marina, there was a crowd to
welcome me back. It is always a magic moment to see all the
friends, to communicate about all the good and bad times of
the race. And even the tough times becomes good. And when
the first emotion was calming down, just before going for
dinner, they told me the sad news, that Roberto Varinelli,
the skipper of the boat 173, was lost at sea. It was a shock.
Participating in offshore racing on small boats like ours,
we know and accept this risk. Sometimes we don't think about
it but only about the boat performance and it is a tough comeback
to reality when loosing a friend. This tragic event will not
change the way I sail as I already do everything possible
to improve safety and avoid such accidents.
Below are details about my first leg. You can also get more
information (in French) from the official race site Le
site officiel de la Transat 6,50 Charente-Maritime Bahia.
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The departure was given on Saturday the 26 of September. The
departure line was a few miles off La Rochelle and we had
to go around a buoy close to shore so the spectators could
see the boats. Just after this buoy, it was down wind condition
all the way to cap Finistere (Spain). I had my spinnaker ready
to hoist, but as there were too many spectator boats around,
I decided to wait a little to hoist it. So I went to close
back the spinnaker bag and I made a huge mistake. I did not
notice that the bag was not closed properly and going back
to the cockpit, I suddenly saw my spinnaker being dragged
to the sea. It went around the starboard rudder and got stuck
in it. After ten minutes trying to take it out, I had to take
the decision to dismount the rudder to get the spinnaker free:
Not an easy operation at sea and very time consuming too.
When I finally got my spinnaker out, there was a big hole
in it so I had to use my small spinnaker for the next 2 hours
until I fixed the light one. That put me some 15 miles behind
the leaders. I was mad about that and decided to risk everything
to come back and take the lead. For the night, the weather
forecast predicted wind up to 30 knots with gusts up to 40.
I spent all night under small spinnaker. The boat was bouncing
on the water, I lost a few times the control of the boat and
took down the spinnaker as quickly as possible to avoid breaking
everything, and hoisted it back right after. The following
day, I was first of my class and only 4 protos where in front
of me. I had broken a few things during the night but nothing
I could not fix. I was back in the game and ready to keep
the lead.
During the night, the wind fell to 5 knots but the swell was
still big making sailing very hard. Then slowly, the wind
shifted to South-West, so exactly where we had to go. To tack
around the Cap Finistere is rather difficult as the sea can
be rough and the wind can shift a lot. Unfortunately, I did
not have local knowledge of this place, and in the wind condition
we had, it was better to sail extremely close to the shore.
So I lost the lead and the entire advance (20 miles) I had.
The wind was now South and picking up rapidly. A low pressure
was coming, so I decided to sail to the west to go towards
this low pressure and the front. Sailing on the port tack
was not the fastest one as I was sailing around 60 degrees
off but it was better to lose a little now and gain a lot
later. The front was pretty active with very strong wind and
very heavy rain but the wind shift associated with the front
gave me the possibility to sail straight towards the Canaries.
I came back in front of Michel but another competitor, Loic
Lebras took the lead. I did not care too much, as I was pretty
sure that my west position was a good one and that I was going
to take the lead. During the strong head wind, the sea was
very rough and the beating was terrible. It was so bad that
the gas cooker I had in the boat broke. That was really bad
news for me as most of my food was dehydrated food. So for
the next ten days I had to eat dehydrated food prepared with
cold water. Not good for the morale!
Around mid day, I saw a boat in front of me. I was sailing
much faster than him. Two hours later I passed Loic and came
back first in the race. At this time we were still sailing
against the wind. But in the following days, the weather conditions
became very confused with a high pressure blocking the way
to the Canaries. In addition to this complex weather, we had
a major piece of information missing. Meteo France, the organism
making the weather forecast in France was on strike. So we
stopped receiving the weather news. This was terrible for
us. I could see that there was a high pressure in front of
me from the atmospheric pressure, the wind and the sky. But
I did not know where it was centered and what was the pressure
in the middle. So looking at the pressure I had, I could not
know how far I was from the center and this is a critical
piece of information as in the center, there is no wind at
all. I was also unsure of where to go: to the east to catch
down wind or to the west to be up wind (a longer distance
but better if the wind is very light). So with the very limited
information we had, it was not possible to say which route
was the best and it was mainly luck to be on the good side.
Another point which annoyed me was that the competitors I
had left far behind were coming back quickly on us as they
still had wind. So most of the advance we had disappeared.
I did not particularly enjoy this part of the race, with very
little wind to no wind at all, big swells making the sails
flap continuously, no possibility to sleep as the wind kept
on shifting. In one night, the wind turned twice 360 degrees.
I kept on changing sails, genoa, gennaker, and spinnaker.
In 48 hours I slept only 4 times 20 minutes. I started to
hear voices, to fall down on the boat and had no choice than
to go for 2 straight hours of sleep knowing that more likely
the boat would not be sailing right for so long. The only
relief was that the other competitors were certainly in the
same state of exhaustion.
Michel and Loic started to take the advantage so I guessed
they had more wind and tried to sail more towards the East
in the hope that the wind was better over there. I guessed
they were more to the East than me as we seemed to finally
come out of this high pressure and the wind started to shift
to the North. The wind was not blowing the same everywhere.
I think I was quite unlucky in this game as I found some good
wind, but only after Michel and Loic, and did not manage to
come back on them. In those types of conditions, a good indication
of wind is the clouds. They were in line with blue sky between.
So I kept changing from one of these cloud lanes to another,
trying to find good wind. Finally, I stopped sailing to the
East to make a direct route to Lanzarote. Michel and Loic
were only a few miles off me and had wind twice as strong.
But a little more to the East, the conditions were the same
as mine. The trick is to find one of these cloud lanes and
stay in it. So I finished third, 3 minutes behind Loic and
4 hours and half behind Michel. So I am still in the game
to win the race.
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