October, 4th, 2013
A month to the start and more work on analysing the weather
Marc Guillemot and Pascal Bidégorry will be going aboard the Safran monohull in Le Havre on 3rd November to set off on the longest Transat Jacques Vabre in history: they will have to sail 5400 miles to reach Itajaí in Brazil. With the weather expert, Jean-Yves Bernot, Marc and Pascal are looking ahead to this new and varied race course. This work is very important, as once at sea routing is not allowed.
This is the big event of the 2013 season for Safran, with a race course for this Transat Jacques Vabre looking tough, with around a thousand miles more to sail than in previous editions and a finish that is a long way south in Itajaí, down under the Horn of Brazil.
Reminiscent of the Vendée Globe
The meteorologist, Jean-Yves Bernot gives us all the details about this Atlantic voyage, which should take around twenty days: “This year’s race is a bit like the start of the Vendée Globe. With a rather tricky stretch to begin with between Le Havre and the latitude of Lisbon, where they could face some very strong winds.
Then, between the south of Portugal and the north of the Canaries, they will have to deal with a transition zone with variable winds. This is an interesting part of the course from a strategic perspective. The boats that come off best getting through this zone will pick up the NE’ly trade winds that much sooner to take them to the Doldrums, the famous area of instability in the course. When they reach the Equator, Marc and Pascal will breathe a sigh of relief, as they pick up the South Atlantic trade winds taking them all the way to the latitude of Bahia. The final stretch promises to be complicated. The double-handed crews could encounter a variety of conditions south of Rio: with fronts passing over, transition zones, etc. In spite of the tiredness, it will require a lot of flair and talent when taking decisions.”
Well prepared before the race
To deal as best they can with this varied race course, Marc Guillemot and Pascal Bidégorry attended a weather training course with Jean-Yves Bernot at the Port-la-Forêt Training Centre in Brittany. “Taking into account their expert knowledge of the weather, we tended to work more on strategy,” explained the meteorologist. “In general, my job was to offer them the methods to speed up the decision-making process. I presented the most common weather situations and how to deal with them. You have to get in the right place depending on the weather patterns and other competitors and avoid the traps: the index one would be getting stuck in a no way out situation. This is a fascinating and subtle game. They will be analysing the situation in more and more detail as we draw near to the start. A week before they set off, Marc and Pascal will take a close look at the situation to see how things are developing.” But it won’t be until the final moment that the race strategy is precisely determined...
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