Imoca fleet, 30 miles in front of Jérémie Beyou on Maître Coq, the boat on which Armel Le Cléac’h finished second in the last Vendée behind… Macif. Unusually this year’s entire Imoca fleet passed south of the Azores – probably the first time in the history of the race that no one has passed through the islands. Yves Le Blevec on Actualwas the early leader in the Multi 50 class, before making a pitstop in Cascais to repair his wind instru- ments. The La Trinité skipper had been showing good speed but his longterm prospects without wind information were severely limited, compromising both performance and also safety under autopilot. Actual arrived in Cascais the morning of day 3 to be met by his technical team before restarting some 10 hours later. However, several other Multi 50s retired altogether: very early in the race Loïc Féquet’s Multi 50 Maitre Jacques lost a big section off its starboard float. Seemingly an exact repeat of a problem suffered a year ago, according to the Brittany skipper. Sébastien Rogues sailing the Mach 40 GDF-SUEZwas the clear favourite in the 43-strong Class 40 fleet because his Sam Manuard design had won all bar one of the races entered since her launch. And he was duly leading the fleet when on day 2 he was diverted by the race committee to assist Pierre Antoine who was in diffi- culty on his small trimaran Olmix. Sébastien stood by for several hours before continuing – now in fourth place. Then, in a big surprise, the next day he informed his shore team that he had decided to retire and head back to Spain. The reasons given included a torn mainsail, which forced him to sail with two reefs, and an accu- mulation of smaller issues that he felt gave him no chance to get back to the front. On top of the sail problem, Sébastien had suffered broken wind instruments (a real epidemic on the Rhum), he had lost the antenna of his Fleet broadband and had also damaged his starboard upper spreader… also destroying a spinnaker in the same incident!
Obviously the smaller boats suffered quite a lot in the early rough weather. The first big incident at the beginning of the first night in the Channel saw the two new sistership Sabrosa Mk2 Class 40s – both boats losing their keels. François Angoulvant (president
of the Class 40s) was lifted off by helicopter just after midnight and was taken to Brest for medical observation. Marc Lepesqueux was luckier in that he managed to keep his boat upright when he lost his keel, stabilising it by filling the ballast tanks. He was able to make it to Guernsey unaided. In both cases the keel fin had simply snapped.
After a week 11 Class 40s had retired but at the front Kito De Pavant was very much enjoying the game on his Verdier design, closely pursued by Spanish skipper Alex Pella on the fast Botín Tales 2and Yannick Bestaven on his brand new Verdier design built in St Malo by Louis Burton.
At the halfway stage Pierre Brasseur was also doing well in fourth sailing an ‘old’ Owen Clarke design and sixth was Madame Merron on a Pogo 40 S2. Well done, Miranda… The whole Class 40 fleet chose a southern course so the final 2,000 miles should be a nice gybing ballad in the trade winds.
In total 25 of the 91 starters, more than a quarter of the fleet, retired during the first week of the race. The Route du Rhum is never a peaceful affair. Patrice Carpentier
ITALY Italians on the Rhum
On the eve of the start I talked to Andrea Mura and Giancarlo Pedote, two of the three Italians on the starting line (the third is Alessandro Di Benedetto). Mura – who has a new Imoca 60 in build at Persico – won the last edition of the Rhum in his class while Pedote is the 2014 serial winner in the Mini 6.50s on his famous David Raison-designed scow. In the Rhum for the first time, he’s trying his hand onboard a recent-generation Class 40…
Andrea Mura – Open 50 Vento di Sardegna SH: Your Felci-designed 50-footer was built 14 years ago… are you still finding improvements? Andrea Mura: First of all, we are always making her lighter. Before the last Ostar we changed the bulb with a new design
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