News Around the World After two events in the newly created Pro Sailing Tour, in Brest
and La Rochelle, both won by Leyton, Sam and his crew were leading the pack in front of Arkema, followed by the brand new Ciela Village skippered by class president Erwan Leroux. Six trimarans are currently racing, and Sam told us he is really impressed how close the competition is despite the disparate ages of the boats. ‘At the moment there is no one boat going a lot faster. In each race you have to work hard to win.’ Arkema is the closest rival to Leyton (which is the four-year-old
previous Ciela Village). The ‘old’ Primonial is also getting better and better although she broke her mast in the first grand prix at Brest but then finished second at La Rochelle. Arsep had a new mast fitted before Brest so she should be going faster in the next events, and VPLP’s latest Ciela Village is of course a very tough opponent... ‘The Tour is still wide open. After La Rochelle it looked easy, but
on the water it wasn’t. And the Transat Jacques Vabre this autumn, this will be even more so,’ said Sam.
only the second time in the 12 editions, and a new sub-five-day course record will take some beating. After another close battle to the finish this year the latest Raison
design built by JPS at La Trinité, Project Rescue Ocean (n°162), took the final victory. Axel Trehin and Frédéric Denis crossed the finish line after 4d 17h 49m 50s at sea. ‘It’s a crazy race!’ declared Axel and Frédéric. ‘It was game-on from beginning to end with twists at every stage. This race is always full-on and we feel proud to have secured the win. And, on a personal level, getting off to such a good start with our new Class40 project is obviously fantastic.’ Astern, the suspense regarding the final podium continued all
the way to the line. In the end the modified (with a new flatter bow) Mach40.3 Lamotte Module Création took silver. ‘It’s great to finish second in this race and thank goodness it validates the massive winter rebuild that we undertook (Issue 495). ‘The intensity of the competition was mad. For five days you
cannot afford to take your foot off the pedal and yet it was still a super-tight and crazy end to the race. It’s worth celebrating the whole band of five at the front because the level was truly awesome,’ added Lamotte skipper Luke Berry later. Antoine Carpentier took part for the fifth time in this event with
several podiums to his credit. Last year he struggled with his new Mach40.4 Redman designed by Sam Manuard and had to give way to two other scow designs, Banque du Léman and Crédit Mutuel. This year Antoine stayed consistently at the front with his Spanish teammate Pablo Saturde, but even so they had to stick their elbows out to save a podium after an intense last few miles. He comments: ‘This race is made harder – and I guess more
exciting – by the succession of “railway crossings” caused by the strong currents in the English Channel. The Normandy Channel is definitely a race for jumping around in terms of your tactics! However, in the rare periods of reaching that we did have the scow bow made a huge difference – I am not going back! ‘Of the two families of scows (which were always in the lead) I
would say the Raison designs, with a little more rocker aft than the Manuard design, seem slightly more forgiving in the light winds and lumpy seas. ‘Conversely the breeze played to our advantage on our powerful
Manuard design. That said, speed differences remain minimal between the two families. But this time the victory was not in speed but in positioning... and in patience. ‘Unfortunately, although we arrived at the Channel Islands with
When Belgian Thierry Verstraete went calling on Steve Dashew for one of his slender ocean-going FPB designs he found that the man himself had retired and was not prepared to have his legendary designs built without his involvement. But Verstraete soon found alternative partners in less well-known Circa Marine to build his new oceanic motor yacht to a design by LomOcean. Circa has delivered previous Dashew FPBs while LomOcean designed the round-the-world record power trimaran Earthrace
At La Rochelle Sam had three Frenchmen and one Swiss in his
crew of five: Aymeric Chappellier, François Morvan, Thomas Coville and Laurane Mettraux. For the next rendezvous in July in Las Palmas Coville, who is very
busy with his Ultim Sodebo, will not be onboard Leyton, replaced by Elodie Mettraux. ‘But I really like these 50ft trimarans,’ Thomas told me. ‘They are fast, simple, much simpler than the Imocas. They are also impressive to sail on for sponsor PR. Both the format and the input from the new Pro Sailing Tour is very positive too.’ After the round in Gran Canaria, where a seventh trimaran (the
previous Arkema) joins the fleet, the Tour continues in Marseille, before finishing with an offshore race from Toulon to Brest in August.
Class40 is always intense Twenty-two Class40s out of the original line-up of 23 made it across the finish line in the 12th Normandy Channel Race, a figure that is exceptional on several levels. With varied conditions, the race was completed in its entirety for
26 SEAHORSE
the Raison design Project Rescue Ocean (the winner)) only half a mile ahead of us, she then got a puff which took her into a new breeze and soon she was so far ahead she was out of reach.’ Now it was the fight for second that was tight, the next two boats
finishing in match racing mode with Luke Berry just getting the better of the situation on his heavily modified Mach40.3 Lamotte to claim the second step of the podium just in front of Carpentier’s Redman. It took only 4d 18h for the winner to complete the race this year.
The runner-up finished an hour later but then there were only six minutes covering second to fifth place, with a mere 16-second gap between third, Redman, and fourth, Crédit Mutuel! Antoine continues: ‘Redman has always been in the top pack
of the race and rounded two marks in first place: at the SW tip of England and again around the Fastnet Rock. ‘Lamotte’s excellent placing was due to two things: Luke Berry’s
Mach.3 has undoubtedly gained significantly in running performance with her new bow and I would say, even more, that the crew were really clever with their strategy between Guernsey and Barfleur. ‘We had practically every wind condition during the race. As a
result this 12th edition of the NCR was very demanding physically with so many manoeuvres. But now we all have ideas how to optimise our new boats – I have many ideas on how to improve my own sail configuration on Redman.’ The next meeting of the Class40 is a race from Les Sables to
the Azores in July, which is also double-handed. And due to Covid rules this race will this year be sailed without a stop... Patrice Carpentier
IVOR WILKINS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
