Marie Tabarly rewrote history last night, surpassing her famous father’s record by taking line honours in the Ocean Globe Race,…
French dominate Ocean Globe Race finish at Cowes
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French Whitbread yacht L’Esprit d’Equipe sailed into Cowes on Saturday 13 April to take second place in the Ocean Globe Race. Barry Pickthall reports.
Lionel Regnier and his crew aboard the veteran French Whitbread Race yacht L’Esprit d’Equipe returned to Cowes late on Saturday night to take second place on elapsed time for the final leg of the Ocean Globe Race from Punta del Este, Uruguay.
Just over 24 hours later, the Finnish crew aboard the Whitbread veteran Swan 641 Spirit of Helsinki crossed the line in third place after sailing for 179 days.
It was a stellar performance from L’Esprit d’Equipe. The 57ft three-time Whitbread Race veteran, then under the command of fellow French skipper Lionel Pean, won the 1985/6 Race outright. Crossing the finish line at 2027 UTC, just 21 and a half hours behind Marie Tabarly’s much larger Pen Duick VI, Regnier and his crew have comprehensively out sailed four larger rivals, the nearest being Spirit of Helsinki.
Regnier said at the finish. ‘I’m exhausted but very happy to be here. It’s been a long project and we were all disappointed by our positions on the first three legs [to Cape Town, Auckland and Punta del Este]. But on this final leg we have shown what this boat is capable of.’
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While other crews fell into calms off the Brazilian coast, the L’Esprit d’Equipe crew read the weather exactly right and were leading the race outright as they crossed the Equator using 1970s era weather faxes transmitted in morse code together with sextant sights to plot their positions just as it was in the first Whitbread 50 years ago.
A big part of the challenge of the Ocean Globe Race is that there are no satnavs or chart plotters, nor any of the satellite weather reports and wind predicting apps that all of us take for granted now.
It was not until the leaders were in tropical trade winds in the North Atlantic that the bigger 73ft Pen Duick VI was able to show her greater speed.
Now the focus turns to an intriguing battle for handicap honours, not just for this last leg, but the race itself.
Marie Tabarly has set down the marker. At the time of writing, another French yacht, the Swan 53 Triana still topped the leaderboard on handicap, with a projected elapsed time of 180 days 14 hours, but this is only 2 hours ahead of Spirit of Helsinki, with Britain’s all-girl crew aboard Maiden skippered by Heather Thomas, a further 4 hours behind.
Just one poor weather call, false tack or blown-out sail could make all the difference for any of these three.
Follow the race at the Ocean Globe Race tracker.
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The post French dominate Ocean Globe Race finish at Cowes appeared first on Yachting Monthly.