They’re gone, they’re all here, fighting on the water, finally. The Imoca class monohulls cast off this Tuesday, November 7 in Le Havre, more than a week after the date initially planned for the big start of the Transat Jacques-Vabre. An edition turned upside down by storms Ciaran and Domingos, dispersing the fleet like a puzzle to the great dismay of the organizers who originally hoped to group together the arrivals in Martinique of the four classes of boats in the race.
The ace. The Ultimate Giants are the only ones to have fled on October 29, just before the bad winds, and they have already covered more than half of their journey. The champion of the five flying boats could cross the finish line as early as November 13 or 14. The Ocean Fifty class trimarans and the Class40 monohulls also set off on time, but were forced to stop for a week in Lorient, before leaving mid-morning on Monday November 6. Shortened by a few hundred miles, their navigation should bring them to Fort-de-France around November 18 for the multihulls, November 22 for the Class40s.
Traps for strategists
The IMOCAs could therefore fit in between all these little people by reaching, for the best, Martinique from November 17. Because their journey is also shortened, the Transat, therefore, « approaching a Route du Rhumjudge Yoann Richomme, the skipper of the Paprec Arkéa team. While the race was initially expected to last 16 to 17 days, the fastest will finish in 11 or 12 days. The game looks very open in the Atlantic. »
In fact, rather than champing at the bit, the sailor tandems quickly spent their waiting week analyzing how to adapt to these upheavals. “This is a game changer. We had to study the possible options and the pitfalls to avoid”notes Samantha Davies, one of the 18 sailors on deck for this Transat (one in Ocean Fifty, nine in Imoca, eight in Class40).
And if the options are numerous, at the end of the Channel this Wednesday, they also promise to be sporty. Because the Imocas will very quickly have to endure a depression, out of all proportion to the storms of the previous week but still with gusts of more than 35 knots and seas with waves of 4 meters. Enough to be shaken up, especially for those looking for the most northerly, most direct route, which according to forecasts promises a second depression at the end of the week.
Move the race to Easter?
Those who decide to take care of their mounts will undoubtedly go further south. Certainty: the new racing data offers the possibility of very diverse strategic choices. It’s not uninteresting, but it’s no longer quite the same Transat Jacques-Vabre. After the unprecedented postponement last year of the start of the Route du Rhum, pushed back by three days, these recurring vagaries of the weather raise questions. To the point of considering moving the start of the Transat?
“It is a reflection that must take place, of course, even if an alternative is very difficult to find because of the constraints of the timetable, underlines Gildas Gautier, the co-director of the Le Havre event. We must avoid the hurricane season in the Caribbean, then the winter storms which seem to arrive earlier and earlier, and at the same time take into account school holidays in order to have a large audience on the pontoons. But perhaps an Easter race would be possible. »
The Transat Jacques-Vabre had already experienced delayed starts, in 2011 and 2013, but “not as complex to manage”, remembers Gildas Gautier. A euphemism to say that this time we also had to deal with the anger of certain skippers regretting these scattered departures. “There is also the question of the long-term sustainability of these multi-class races and the big gap between the Ultimates who pass and the rest of the fleet which does not pass”particularly railed Fabrice Amedeo, skipper of the Imoca Nexans-Art & Fenêtres 2.
The Norman organizers have adapted, but they are not the only ones. It was also necessary to postpone another race, the Return to Base, a new single-handed event reserved for IMOCAs which should make it possible to bring back to France, to Lorient, the boats arriving in Martinique, in order to avoid their costly and energy-consuming repatriation by cargo ships. .
Scheduled for November 26, the departure will not be given until the 30th. The festivities upon arrival in Lorient, however, remain on the same schedule, from December 10 to 18. Which means that the boats will not have to linger on the way back in the North Atlantic, which will undoubtedly be very choppy in December. The life of a sailor is not easy.
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