19.11.2005
ELLEN MACARTHUR FINISHES SECOND
IN TWO-HANDED 4,340 MILE TRANSAT JACQUES VABRE RACE, ONBOARD 60-FOOT MONOHULL SILL ET VEOLIA WITH FRENCH SKIPPER ROLAND JOURDAIN
FINISH TIME: 13 DAYS, 9 HOURS, 54 MINUTES, 3 SECONDS
Minutes after the finish of the two-handed Transat Jacques Vabre race, Ellen MacArthur talks about the intense battle for first place with her French rivals.
FROM ELLEN AT THE FINISH:
How do you think this race was won and lost?
Well, we really struggled after the Equator because we were behind and the way it works is like it's a little bit like an escalator and whoever gets off the front keeps on taking more and more miles. Basically, Virbac got away and he pulled away more and more and more in better breeze all the time so we got stuck behind.
Just tell what you and Roland tried to do in the last 24hours to get back on Virbac-Paprec?
We tried to close the gap 24 hours ago and we basically said we've got to try everything to get back those miles, so last night after the last position report we headed quite a long way inshore and that worked brilliantly and we managed to get back down to 15 or 13 miles this morning. But that still wasn't enough so we tried something else this afternoon and, again, that worked really, really well but not well enough and we got down to 8 miles but it wasn't good enough.
How are you feeling now?
I think we're pretty glad to be in but pretty frustrated to be second… We sailed a very hard race, I think we sailed a good race, we were pretty unlucky in the Doldrums and things just didn't really go our way. But we tried everything we could to pull back what we could but sadly it wasn't enough.
What do you think about the pace of these newer generation Open 60s?
I think the speed has been absolutely incredible. I've sailed 60-footers a lot but this was really something different. Sailing two-handed normally helps a little bit and you're not too tired but certainly within the first week we were absolutely exhausted. I mean so tired that Bilou (aka Roland Jourdain) fell asleep drinking a cup of tea in front of me and just dropped the tea! It really was extraordinarily hard and it seemed that every time we tried to sleep it was another sail change but we just kept pushing and that's what kept us up with the leaders.
Were you happy to be racing with Roland Jourdain?
It was fantastic racing with Bilou [Roland Jourdain] and to get back to the 60s…brilliant boats, they really are. They go through anything and it was great to be sailing on one again. But sailing with Bilou is very special - I very much took on this race because Bilou asked me to do this and we both got an enormous amount of pleasure doing this race together. We laughed so much and I think I've laughed more with Bilou in this race than over the past year! Sure we didn't win and a little bit upset because of that but I've certainly got no regrets going out there and doing what we did. It was an amazing race.
Have you spoken with Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron [Virbac-Paprec crew]?
They jumped on the boat as soon as we tied up! I think they were pretty happy certainly to get in first.
To download Ellen audio, click here:
http://www.ocftp2.com/audio/ellen/em181105a_uk_e.mp3
For more information contact Lucy Harwood
lucy.harwood@ocgroup.com
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Go to http:www.teamellen.com for further information.
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