19.11.2005
Press Release No. 19
Saturday 19th November, 2005
www.jacques-vabre.com
TRANSAT JACQUES VABRE 05: IMOCA OPEN 60 PODIUM COMPLETE
LINE HONOURS TO CREPES WHAOU!
• Line Honours: Crepes Whaou ! (F-Y and K Escoffier) took line honours at 20:13:59 GMT (17:13:59 local time) and won the Open 50 Multihull Class.
• Virbac-Paprec, Sill et Veolia, Bonduelle race stats at the end of this email with latest rankings
• ETA Ecover: 1300 – 1400 GMT
• ORMA Multihull leaders: at 10:52:00 GMT: Banque Populaire 475m DTF (ORMA 60), Ecover 26.9m DTF (IMOCA 60); Open 50 Mono leader: Gryphon Solo 1,280m DTF (Open 50 Monohull),
• Race Record for the IMOCA Monohull class was held by Roland Jourdain and Gael Le Cleac’h on Sill Plein Fruit in the 2001 Transat Jacques Vabre, finishing the race after 16 days, 13 hours and 23 minutes at an average boat speed of 10.9 knots. Virbac-Paprec smashed this record by
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CLASS 2 OPEN 50 MULTIHULL FLEET
The Father-son pair Franck-Yves and Kevin Escoffier onboard their 2005 Van Peteghem / Prévost Open 50 multihull crossed the finish line of the 2005 Transat Jacques Vabre first in the whole fleet and winner of the Multihull Open 50 class at 20:13:59 GMT (17:13:59 local time) gliding along on one hull at 13 knots on starboard tack in the golden sunset light off Salvador followed by a flurry of spectator boats in their wake. They have also set the reference time for the Multihull Class 2 division of 12 days, 6hrs as only Mollymawk in 2003 has completed the race but in 27 days 15 hrs 58 minutes and outside the rankings...read on for the stats
Franck-Yves Escoffier spoke about his pride at being the first across the line ahead of both Open 60 classes: “I announced at the start that this is the boat’s first transat, and it was built to attract people to race in this class. It’s a fun boat, beautiful to look at, and at an affordable price…our aim was to show off the boat, show it can go quickly, hopefully keep up with the Open 60’s, and now our dream is coming true!”
The new Open 50 trimaran Crêpes Whaou !, launched this year in April 2005 has proven her winning potential on her maiden transatlantic race. This Mark van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prévost design is the first boat built according to the new rules for the 50ft class brought out last winter. These regulations include a certain number of constraints, including the number of appendages (4 max), no bow sprit, no swing masts allowed and certain construction materials. With only one damage on the indexsail track, which meant that the boat had to be sailed with one reef in the indexsail for several days after the Canaries. The other problem outside their control was the collision with a mammal at the Cape Verde Islands which resulted in a small leak through a crack in the daggerboard casing. Amazingly, the second Open 50 multihull, Gifi (Demachy / Langlois) is 1,800m behind off the Cape Verdes.
IMOCA 60 CLASS – PODIUM COMPLETE
The race record for the Transat Jacques Vabre was destroyed by 3 days and 4 hours last night when French skippers Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron on Virbac-Paprec crossed the finish line at 20:19:02 local time (23:19:02 GMT) as victors of the IMOCA Open 60 class after 13 days, 9 hours, 19 minutes and 2 seconds at sea. After the final polling at 1900 GMT showed Virbac-Paprec to be holding the smallest of leads at 8.7m ahead of Sill et Veolia, the gybing battle to the finish in pitch black Brazilian night left everyone guessing whose masthead lights would appear out of the darkness in All Saints Bay first. The blue and white hull was lit up as she creened along on starboard tack at a fair rate to take a well-deserved victory by the smallest of margins ever recorded in the history of this race – just 6 miles!
This is the second consecutive victory in the Transat Jacques Vabre for the Farr Open 60 skippered by Jean-Pierre Dick, after he won the 2003 edition, with co-skipper Nicolas Abiven. This time, they were the first boat also to rip apart the record set by Roland Jourdain and Gael Le Cleac’h on Sill Plain Fruit in 2001 of 16 days, 13 hours and 23 minutes.
Just 35 minutes and 1 second later it was the turn of the red hulled Lombard design, Sill et Veolia, to appear out of the night on the same trajectory in the steady inshore breeze and cross the line off the CENAB at 20:54:03 local time (23:54:03 GMT) to the sound of fireworks. These 4 skippers set a ‘Dantesque’ pace in this transat, never separating more than 32 miles during their non-stop 4,340m race on a nearly identical route for the last 2 weeks. Virbac-Paprec sailed just 12 miles more in terms of actual distance, proving that these two new generation Open 60’s from different designs are equally matched over what has been a battle for boat speed all the way from Le Havre, France.
At 06:29 in Salvador (09:29:52 GMT) the appropriately Brazilian coloured yellow and green Open 60 monohull glided across the finish line on port tack sailing close hauled at 10 knots boat speed in the bright early morning conditions to take 3rd place in the IMOCA Open 60 monohull class. Le Cam and De Pavant took 13 days, 19 hours, 29 mins and 52s, which gives them a 10 hour, 10 minute and 50 second deficit on winner Virbac-Paprec.
Quotes from the Press Conference
Virbac-Paprec
Jean-Pierre Dick on the pontoon: “It’s been fantastic, it’s such an incredible feeling to arrive in Salvador as we did, after such a fight which turned into a pure battle for boat speed at close quarters. It’s just as good as my first victory in this amazing race, maybe it’s more satisfying this time as the standard of competition was so high and the boats so close together in performance. I’m loving my job!”
Jean-Pierre Dick: “The duel with Sill et Veolia was incredible. It was like the longest arm-wrestling competition! When you think we were never more than about 30 miles apart the whole way, it’s just mind-blowing. We had pretty similar weather routing, the course we both sailed were faultless, and so it was down to pure boat speed in the end, where we had to push the boat 100% all the way. Our strength was to never feel defeated and always to keep pushing hard. It must have been just as tough for Bilou and Ellen. Even this afternoon, they sailed an excellent course, we had the foresight to place ourselves in between them and the line, as otherwise if we’d stayed offshore we would certainly have finished second.”
Loïck Peyron : “These boats are really wet, worse than on a multihull. We have time to see the waves coming but not to avoid them. I haven’t sailed a monohull for 13 years, and I’ve found they’ve progressed enormously, in speed, in performance. If they make them less wet why not do another Vendée Globe ? My problem is that I have many things I want to do in my life. Virbac-Paprec is an extremely well balanced boat at the helm. We helmed an awful lot, these are very physical boats, very powerful, it’s been fascinating. In the gusts, the feeling of safety is undeniable compared to a multihull, there’s no comparison, not even a hint of danger, even downwind under spinnaker, we can pose on deck no problem.”
Jean-Pierre Dick on Loick Peyron: “Loïck has an extraordinary experience as an offshore sailor. Paradoxically, the thing I learned most from him in this race was about my well-being, life onboard, how to manage stress, to stay zen, to keep pushing permanently but stay calm.”
Loïck Peyron on JP Dick: “Jean-Pierre is really a one-off, he’s gone directly from racing around three buoys in a regatta to racing between three continents around the world. If he has any fault, it’s that he always wears his head torch, day as well as night, I don’t know, maybe he thinks there’ll be an eclipse of the sun! He has blinded me on several occasions!”
Jean-Pierre Dick: “Two-handed is more than just two solo sailors together, we sail the boat at 100% as if there were 5 crew on board. But on the other hand, you sleep less, but you sleep much better. I like the idea of doing more races like this, longer, just as passionate, with a great balance between the technical aspect of racing and then the pleasure of the competition. Frankly, the IMOCA class has a beautiful future ahead.”
And finally…when asked what was the technical ‘problem’ Bilou and Ellen were sure they had at one point when Sill et Veolia was able to briefly take the lead last weekend, Loick responds: “Ah, the technical problem that Bilou and Ellen thought we had…well, okay we’ll confess, it was a real nightmare, the zip got jammed on the sleeping bag and Jean-Pierre was stuck inside for hours…!!”
Sill et Veolia
Roland Jourdain : “It was a great duel, with bad weather on our side of the course. At times it was tough to be sailing at night through the storm already with a minimum of sail up and having to say to myself : okay, now we’re going to have to reduce sail below the minimum ?”
Ellen MacArthur :
“It’s been two years since I’ve raced two-handed, the pace was really high, it was extremely tough sailing through those two nasty fronts at the start. It’s been exhausting, we’ve been sailing at our max the whole way – and it was amazing !”
Roland Jourdain : “We really had to earn out ticket to the tropics ! Saying that, we really do have incredible boats, the number of waves that we’ve conquered, saying to each other, is this the one that’ll end our race…but the boat held on, again and again…we just flew, i twas magical sailing.”
Ellen MacArthur : “One difference in sailing monohulls is that you have a bigger range of sails to choose from unlike on a multihull, so there is definitely more work on deck changing sails as you are more limited on a multihull.”
Roland Jourdain : “In any case, these races are never the same each time you do them, I’m just happy to finish on the podium and not have to walk home with the keel under my arm. If the next Vendée Globe is going to be sailed at the same pace, it’ll be super tough ! We could sustain this pace for longer though, so maybe we have to increase the miles for a transat. I think the factors that went against us here are small…our friends ahead navigated their way rather niftily through the Doldrums, they’re a formidable pair of sailors. Perhaps it was just down to bad luck that that cloud trapped us in the Doldrums for half an hour, as after the Equator, as Virbac was the first boat into the SE Trades with a slightly better wind and sailing angle.”
Crepes Whaou!
Franck-Yves Escoffier
“For Kevin and I to win it’s a really important moment, there was quite an intense feeling for us when we crossed the line. I have three sons and I’ve always wanted to do things with them and my wife as without her we wouldn’t be here. On this Transat, we sailed the boat to 95% of her potential only in the last 4 days. We were more like at 80% and we built up to a crescendo at the end, Kevin and I aren’t pro’s, our life is spent fishing and we adore that, it’s through my job as a fisherman that I can spend all my time on the water. Don’t forget that if we hadn’t had to stop for 6 hours (3hrs 30mins for the indexsail track, 2hrs 30 mins for the daggerboard leak) we would have arrived a lot earlier! It’s a great story, the fishermen who decided to enter a yacht race…
“The Open 50 multihull, a class of the future? I’m not trying to trump the Open 60 class, as they are incredible boats without which we would never have built Crêpes Whaou ! as there are so many lessons learned from Open 60 design which we have benefited from. I’m a sailor from the old school and I wanted to take the best from the Open 60 design and avoid what I don’t like in these boats for transatlantic voyages. So, yes, the Open 50 design will have a good future, as not everyone can pass from a Figaro to an Open 60 trimaran. The moulds belong to Crêpes Whaou ! and the CDK boatyard, but they are available and were built to construct 7 or 8 boats from them. I’d like to see that happen, then there’d be a great class for competition”
MULTIHULL UPDATE: ORMA 60 FLEET
In the ORMA 60 trimaran class, Banque Populaire (Bidegorry / Lemonchois) has pulled out a 89m lead over Gitana 11 (Le Peutrec / Guichard), in turn now 62m ahead of Géant (Desjoyeaux / Destremau), all three now charging at full pelt 25 – 30 knots under gennaker downwind towards the finish line 475 miles away now.
OPEN 50 CLASS 2 MONOHULL UPDATE
Gryphon Solo (Harris / Hall) are hopefully starting to see the light at the end of the Doldrums tunnel and they have not sailed below 10 knots average boat speed in the last 24 hours, a deliverance of sorts for them no doubt as they now head towards the Equator, still indextaining a 234m lead over 2nd placed Artforms (Stone / Owen). Kip and Merf themselves have edged ahead by a few more miles to lie 36m in front of Vedettes de Bréhat (De Broc / S. Escoffier) as they enter the Doldrums area this weekend.
Official Rankings at 14:44:00 GMT
IMOCA Open 60 Class:
1. Virbac-Paprec (Dick / Peyron) arrived at 23:19:02 GMT, 18th November 2005 after 13 days, 9 hrs, 19 minutes 2 seconds racing, average btspd on water 14.32kts over actual distance sailed of 4,600m
2. Sill et Veolia (Jourdain / MacArthur) arrived at 23:54:03 GMT, 18th November 2005 after 13 days, 9 hrs, 54 minutes 3 seconds racing, 35 minutes 1 second behind winner, at an average btspd on water 14.95kts over actual distance sailed of 4,588m
3. Bonduelle (Le Cam / De Pavant) arrived at 09:29:52 GMT, 19th November 2005 after 13 days, 19 hrs, 29 minutes 52 seconds racing, 10 hrs 10mins 50 seconds behind the winner, at an average btspd on water of 14.11kts over actual distance sailed of 4,676m
Pstn / Boat / Lat / Long / Hdg / DTF / DTL
4 Ecover 12 56.92' S 38 07.52' W 12.9 198 26.9 0.0
5 Skandia 13 02.20' S 37 47.88' W 12.0 200 45.7 18.8
6 Pro-Form 12 41.32' S 37 37.44' W 11.6 211 59.9 33.0
7 UUDS 5 47.72' S 32 35.84' W 14.3 209 563.3 536.4
8 Roxy 3 40.44' S 30 43.20' W 15.4 217 690.1 663.2
Open 50 Monohull Class 2:
Pstn / Boat / Lat / Long / Hdg / DTF / DTL
1 Gryphon Solo 5 17.76' N 27 55.88' W 12.1 167 1280.0 0.0
2 Artforms 9 47.92' N 28 36.80' W 13.3 184 1514.4 234.4
3 Vedettes de Bréhat 9 12.32' N 25 38.84' W 13.3 199 1550.6 270.7
4 Top 50 Guadeloupe 13 00.60' N 23 50.76' W 10.0 207 1802.1 522.1
5 Polarity Solo 14 57.72' N 28 30.84' W 10.1 185 1812.3 532.3
ORMA Open 60 Class 10:52:00 GMT:
Pstn / Boat / Lat / Long / Hdg / DTF / DTL
1 Banque Populaire 12 39.20' S 30 27.60' W 13.5 223 475.3 0.0
2 Gitana 11 12 44.60' S 28 55.16' W 22.6 240 564.7 89.4
3 Géant 11 30.80' S 27 58.00' W 23.6 259 628.1 152.8
4 Gitana X 5 07.08' S 16 51.28' W 10.8 078 1693.8 1218.6
Open 50 Multihull Class 2
1. Crepes Whaou! (F-Y / K Escoffier) arrived at 20:13:59 GMT, 18th November 2005 after 13 days, 6 hrs, 13 minutes 59 seconds racing, average btspd on water 16.10kts over actual distance sailed of 4,738m
International Media Relations:
Mary Ambler
Email: mary.ambler@xalt.co.uk
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