News Around the World
Against maxi rival Rambler even the talents of helmsman Chris Dickson couldn’t make up the stability deficit in a breeze of the slim DSS-assisted, Bakewell-White modified, 2004 Simonis-Voogd designed maxi CQS… a mouthful that in itself tells you this is as far from a purpose-built DSS yacht as you could get. But CQS is trialling interesting new ideas and is the perfect test-bed for a follow-up
FRANCE Around the Rock For the third consecutive year France dominated this edition of the Rolex Fastnet Race, winning every class with the exception of IRC 0 and Mocra in a fleet of 368 boats (of which 312 were racing in IRC!). The weather was typical of this quite complicated course with a long beat to the Rock with winds of Force 0-6, then a long run back to the Scilly Isles, finishing with a reach into Plymouth. The first French boat home, the Imoca 60 SMA, sailed two-handed
by Paul Meilhat and Gwénolé Gahinet, was third across the line, sandwiched between the two supermaxis, CQS and Nikata. The ex-Macif, winner of the 2012-2013 Vendée Globe, was also racing in the last solo round-the-world race and did a really nice job leading the non-foiling ‘division’ until forced to retire when a hydraulic line feeding her keel mechanism failed catastrophically. Two years ago Paul and his coach/manager Michel Desjoyeaux were also on track to win the Fastnet but decided to quit the race after accidentally entering one of the forbidden TSS areas. Having tried, but with no real advantage, a foiling configuration
earlier this season, SMAwas back to her original daggerboards for the Fastnet; the only change to Vendée configuration was to water ballast. Under the latest Imoca rules the number of tanks is reduced from four to two, but now pushed right to maximum beam. ‘So for the same righting moment as before we are now lighter,’ says Paul. SMA stepped out from her Imoca rivals while still in the Solent
and from there quickly built an impressive lead. ‘Speed and navigation were perfect. It was a thrill to sail in our own way – plus from ahead we could also watch some mistakes being made… ‘For example, I was surprised none of us sailed out through the
Scilly Isles on the way to the Fastnet – it was strongly suggested in our routeing. We thought hard about it but it was risky to leave the fleet so we went for a conventional course. Passing Land’s End we were already 10nm in front and then benefited from a “level crossing” that closed behind us. Our lead nearly doubled!’ SMA rounded the Rock early on 8 August and the second Imoca
did not pass for another three hours. Huge! As the forecast suggested at that point the game was over even if in Plymouth the gap to second-placed St-Michel Virbacwas down to under two hours.
14 SEAHORSE
The big surprise for the two sailors on SMA was to cross the line in front of one of the Volvo 65s being sailed by a full crew! Paul and Gwénolé are now among the favourites for the coming
Transat Jacques Vabre even with their conventional daggerboards. The young duo have already won a Transat AG2R on a Figaro 2 three years ago and are very motivated to win on a tricky course that could offer them good opportunities against the foilers. Campagne de France, driven by class president Halvard Mabire,
his English partner Miranda Merron and two other crew, rounded the Rock in front of 25 other Class40s but were overhauled on the way back by the more powerful Mach40s of Maxime Sorel (V&B) and Jersey’s Phil Sharp (Imerys). The architect of the Mach 40 Sam Manuard, an excellent offshore sailor, plus Antoine Carpentier and Jonas Gerckens, completed Sorel’s crew. V&Bis the latest version (mk3) of the Mach40. Meanwhile, the builder of the Mach40s, Nicolas Groleau, skippered his older Mach 45 Bretagne Télécom (another Manuard design!) to third in IRC 0. Phil Sharp: ‘We had V&B breathing down our necks for most of
the course and they finally got past us at the Scillies... but we’d had a very strange incident there as we approached the exclusion zone. Sailing under spinnaker our boat suddenly lurched to a stop and whatever had got hold of us, maybe a ship’s mooring rope, then began to drag us towards the no-go zone. ‘We dropped the chute right away and immediately broke free;
but exactly the same thing happened just minutes later… and soon we were surrounded by Campagne de France and V&B, who flew past and off into the distance!’ On the last reach V&B extended her lead but Sharp’s crew clawed back to second. Arriving on the heels of V&B in Plymouth was a battle between
two rather more comfy racer-cruiser catamarans, the TS42 Guyader Gastronomie of Christian Guyader, narrowly beaten on the water by the larger HH66 R-Six of Pole Robert Szustkowski. Onboard Guyaderwas the overall winner of the 2015 Fastnet Géry Trentesaux: ‘It was quite nice to finish within five minutes of our bigger rival and ahead of all but one Class40, despite a predominantly upwind race.’ Christian Guyader, also an expert sailor, was very happy the way
they sailed their catamaran. An opinion shared by Géry. ‘The catering (from Guyader of course) was excellent. We sit at the table for both
RICK TOMLINSON
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