“It’s a great satisfaction to win with this boat. This is the first major victory for Banque Populaire XI. We are reaping the fruit of our work to make the boat more reliable and improve its performance. We demonstrated it in the race. We are super happy with Sébastien. The fourteen days passed quickly. »
“We must not forget that a year ago, I turned around in the Route du Rhum to replace the broken fin (7th). We came back stronger, it’s great, it feels good. The boat has reached maturity, the whole team has done a lot of work so that we can use it 100%. The start was quite difficult in Le Havre, we had up to 45 knots of wind off Cherbourg. The boat was in place straight away, we were in the game. »
“The boat is in great condition, we could almost cross the Atlantic again tomorrow and bring it back to Lorient. We had a lot of fun, we laughed a lot, the atmosphere on board was great. I told Seb that if he wanted, we would go back together in two years. Even when François (Gabart) got back in front before Ascension, we didn’t have any slack. We knew we could come back, we started to push back and the more things went, the more we motivated ourselves to widen the gap. »
“We said clearly at the start that we wanted to win this race. It wasn’t easy, it was a tough match. We pulled on the boat, we achieved good averages. This afternoon, the boat was flying at 38 knots. There was no stress, it was fabulous. »
SEBASTIEN JOSSE: “there was a match”
“It’s the satisfaction of the work accomplished after two years of work. The race was complex, we had to leave the English Channel in tough conditions, then continue through the Bay of Biscay. Then there was the return of François who pushed us to put in coal. There was a match, there was tension. It was the small details that made the difference in the end and the symbiosis with Armel. We were immediately in sync, even when it was tough. We didn’t have a single moment of slack, there was always a smile on board. There is still a lot to discover on the boat. Doing averages of almost 40 knots is a little scary at first, but then it becomes commonplace. We no longer hesitate to push, we get used to it. This is my second victory in the Transat, the first was in Mod 70 (in 2013). There, it was something else, on flying boats, with strong competition. »
2023-11-13 00:50:35
#Armel #Cléach #great #satisfaction
