La Transat Ag2r La Mondiale
- Thread starter KevinS
- Start date
KevinS
Senior Insider
This morning’s position fixes show some course changes as the boats seek better winds. Agir Recouvrement is still holding onto the lead, just under 500 miles from the finish. This year’s race looks like it may set a new course record. The previous record of 19 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes and 30 seconds was set in 2006 by Kito de Pavant and Pietro d’Ali on Groupe Bel. After sailing over 3700 miles, there were four other boats in sight. I think that the winner of this year’s race will have at least one other boat in sight as they reach Toiny.
KevinS
Senior Insider
With just under 300nm to go, the northern and southern boats ‘crossed” overnight. Agir Recouvrement maintains the lead, 9nm ahead of Bretagne CMB Performance. At this rate, the finish will be sometime tomorrow afternoon or early evening. There will be quite the party on the Quay. Those looking for a less crowded spot to view the finish should consider Espace Météo.
KevinS
Senior Insider
NF Habitat speaks of the "war" with the sargassum, speaking with Alex Loison (Groupe Royer) via VHF radio, and the battle for 5th, 6th, and 7th places (Google Translate):
As long as there is still a doubt about the fact that the Trojan War has taken place, so there is none about the Sargassan war. It's happening right now on the Atlantic. And it really starts to b ... them to have to pass the knot rope and the seaweed cane every quarter of an hour.
I do not like war, although it is borrowed from time to time its semantics to talk about sports, but when it is lost in advance, it is even worse.
Other than that, the regatta continues. We are in visual contact with Groupe Royer - Secours Populaire, although they took us 3 miles tonight in favor of a cloud. I spoke with Goose, also known as Alexis Loison, on the VHF while our teammates were sleeping, it was nice. I asked him to think about the concept of respect for his elders. We will soon know what he thinks, but I have my idea on the subject.
There are still 375 miles to be covered, 6 miles behind Groupe Royer - Secours Populaire and 12 miles ahead of Armor Lux - Gedimat, the battle (you see, I mentioned it at the beginning) for places 5, 6 and 7 will be animated. Answer Friday morning.
Enjoy traffic jams, at least it is without sargasses !!
Co & Christian aboard NF Habitat
As long as there is still a doubt about the fact that the Trojan War has taken place, so there is none about the Sargassan war. It's happening right now on the Atlantic. And it really starts to b ... them to have to pass the knot rope and the seaweed cane every quarter of an hour.
I do not like war, although it is borrowed from time to time its semantics to talk about sports, but when it is lost in advance, it is even worse.
Other than that, the regatta continues. We are in visual contact with Groupe Royer - Secours Populaire, although they took us 3 miles tonight in favor of a cloud. I spoke with Goose, also known as Alexis Loison, on the VHF while our teammates were sleeping, it was nice. I asked him to think about the concept of respect for his elders. We will soon know what he thinks, but I have my idea on the subject.
There are still 375 miles to be covered, 6 miles behind Groupe Royer - Secours Populaire and 12 miles ahead of Armor Lux - Gedimat, the battle (you see, I mentioned it at the beginning) for places 5, 6 and 7 will be animated. Answer Friday morning.
Enjoy traffic jams, at least it is without sargasses !!
Co & Christian aboard NF Habitat
KevinS
Senior Insider
Here's a pretty comprehensive update, covering all of the participants. (Google Translate)
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/actualites/le-chant-des-coques/_R_202_2288_.php
The song of the hulls
The night cleared the hierarchy! Antillean paradox on a road that has come close to the great circle to end this double transat which reaches its seventeen days at sea. It is now clear that three-quarters of the fleet will significantly improve the time benchmark established in 2006 (19d 22h 24 '), and if the duo Hardy-Ruyant today marks its advantage, there is still a day and a half to make sure ...
The song of the rooster vibrates in the Caribbean night: with the jet lag, it is 6:00 in the morning when resound the twelve strokes of noon at the steeple metropolitan. A small crescent moon faintly illuminates more or less whitish cotton balls punctuating the sky, while the breeze brings its share of welcome freshness before the zenith dodger. But there, strewn like plates of degassing of a malicious cargo ship, brown agglomerates weave between the waves, like bad traps from which one can not escape: the Sargass pole is in position in the backstay, the autopilot takes the hand and regularly, an angry gesture removes small balls hanging from thin strands of seaweed dragging in the wake. Repetitive, boring, annoying, indispensable ...
Three hens in the running
The reframing of the number of Figaro Bénéteau has made this finish of the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE more readable: there are now three groups that sting their bows towards the Chevreau, the island before the island. On one side, the two leaders who have re-crossed in the night: Adrien Hardy & Thomas Ruyant (Agir Recovery) in front of Sébastien Simon & Morgan Lagravière (Brittany CMB Performance) one hour behind ... But these two masters of the waves must always be be wary of a duo that persists and signs in the South: Gildas Mahe & Nicolas Troussel (Breizh Cola) are still looking for the shortest route to Saint Barthelemy. But even if they are thirty miles behind the goal, their more southern position (25 miles) can relaunch the debate for an arrival that does not look so simple.
Indeed for the moment, the leaders do not have the completely free field since it will have to jibe again and again before the Antilles! There are at least twenty miles to scratch not to land on Barbuda and take a bit of North, what the current course (340 °) does not allow ... And behind these three duets, point Pierre Leboucher & Christopher Pratt (Guyot Environment ) who also flunked on the road to control the second pool! A group more dispersed since behind Anthony Marchand & Alexis Loison (Group Royer-Secours Populaire) and Corentin Douguet & Christian Ponthieu (NF Habitat), the title holders have chosen the biggest northern shift of the fleet: Erwan Tabarly & Thierry Chabagny ( Armor Lux-Gedimat) are trying everything for the whole while now skirting the great circle, this imaginary line between the Canaries and the Antilles.
The golden eggs
And if this golden figure of seven samurai seems to be about to reap the laurels at Gustavia, there is in their wake another challenge that is far from being drawn: Éric Péron & Miguel Danet (The Macaroon French Pastries) take along a second group that multiplies the crops for two days: the North where Ronan Treussart & Simon Troel (The Pearls of St. Barth) or Justine Mettraux & Isabelle Joschke (TeamWork) knit at the mercy of the clouds, the South where Pierre Rhimbault & Romain Attanasio (Bretagne CMB Espoir) are trying to stand out, from the center where Thomas Dolan and Tanguy Bouroullec (Smurfit Kappa-Cerfrance) and Loïs Berrehar & Erwan Draoulec (Concarneau entrepreneur) propose an alternative ...
But the goose that lays the golden eggs remains the motto of many sailors: if the weather often makes the rich richer, let us beware of losing even more by looking for confused treasures: "Wanting to win everything ... how much have we seen that from the evening to the morning have become poor to want to be rich too soon? Says Jean de La Fontaine ... This is certainly not the case for Mathieu Claveau & Pierre Loulier (Les Frigos Solidaires) who give the leaders nearly 500 miles or Guillaume Farsy & Renaud Nicot (Cornouaille-Solidarité Saint Barth) who will have now very hard to worry, halfway between the archipelago of Cape Verde and the Caribbean bow.
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/actualites/le-chant-des-coques/_R_202_2288_.php
The song of the hulls
The night cleared the hierarchy! Antillean paradox on a road that has come close to the great circle to end this double transat which reaches its seventeen days at sea. It is now clear that three-quarters of the fleet will significantly improve the time benchmark established in 2006 (19d 22h 24 '), and if the duo Hardy-Ruyant today marks its advantage, there is still a day and a half to make sure ...
The song of the rooster vibrates in the Caribbean night: with the jet lag, it is 6:00 in the morning when resound the twelve strokes of noon at the steeple metropolitan. A small crescent moon faintly illuminates more or less whitish cotton balls punctuating the sky, while the breeze brings its share of welcome freshness before the zenith dodger. But there, strewn like plates of degassing of a malicious cargo ship, brown agglomerates weave between the waves, like bad traps from which one can not escape: the Sargass pole is in position in the backstay, the autopilot takes the hand and regularly, an angry gesture removes small balls hanging from thin strands of seaweed dragging in the wake. Repetitive, boring, annoying, indispensable ...
Three hens in the running
The reframing of the number of Figaro Bénéteau has made this finish of the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE more readable: there are now three groups that sting their bows towards the Chevreau, the island before the island. On one side, the two leaders who have re-crossed in the night: Adrien Hardy & Thomas Ruyant (Agir Recovery) in front of Sébastien Simon & Morgan Lagravière (Brittany CMB Performance) one hour behind ... But these two masters of the waves must always be be wary of a duo that persists and signs in the South: Gildas Mahe & Nicolas Troussel (Breizh Cola) are still looking for the shortest route to Saint Barthelemy. But even if they are thirty miles behind the goal, their more southern position (25 miles) can relaunch the debate for an arrival that does not look so simple.
Indeed for the moment, the leaders do not have the completely free field since it will have to jibe again and again before the Antilles! There are at least twenty miles to scratch not to land on Barbuda and take a bit of North, what the current course (340 °) does not allow ... And behind these three duets, point Pierre Leboucher & Christopher Pratt (Guyot Environment ) who also flunked on the road to control the second pool! A group more dispersed since behind Anthony Marchand & Alexis Loison (Group Royer-Secours Populaire) and Corentin Douguet & Christian Ponthieu (NF Habitat), the title holders have chosen the biggest northern shift of the fleet: Erwan Tabarly & Thierry Chabagny ( Armor Lux-Gedimat) are trying everything for the whole while now skirting the great circle, this imaginary line between the Canaries and the Antilles.
The golden eggs
And if this golden figure of seven samurai seems to be about to reap the laurels at Gustavia, there is in their wake another challenge that is far from being drawn: Éric Péron & Miguel Danet (The Macaroon French Pastries) take along a second group that multiplies the crops for two days: the North where Ronan Treussart & Simon Troel (The Pearls of St. Barth) or Justine Mettraux & Isabelle Joschke (TeamWork) knit at the mercy of the clouds, the South where Pierre Rhimbault & Romain Attanasio (Bretagne CMB Espoir) are trying to stand out, from the center where Thomas Dolan and Tanguy Bouroullec (Smurfit Kappa-Cerfrance) and Loïs Berrehar & Erwan Draoulec (Concarneau entrepreneur) propose an alternative ...
But the goose that lays the golden eggs remains the motto of many sailors: if the weather often makes the rich richer, let us beware of losing even more by looking for confused treasures: "Wanting to win everything ... how much have we seen that from the evening to the morning have become poor to want to be rich too soon? Says Jean de La Fontaine ... This is certainly not the case for Mathieu Claveau & Pierre Loulier (Les Frigos Solidaires) who give the leaders nearly 500 miles or Guillaume Farsy & Renaud Nicot (Cornouaille-Solidarité Saint Barth) who will have now very hard to worry, halfway between the archipelago of Cape Verde and the Caribbean bow.
KevinS
Senior Insider
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/actualites/derniere-nuit-en-mer/_R_202_2294_.php
About 300 miles from goal this afternoon (metropolitan time), the leaders of this fourteenth edition of the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE have planned to cut the finish line at Gustavia-Saint Barthélemy around 17:00 local Thursday, May 10 (23:00 Paris). But if the duo Hardy-Ruyant (Agir Recovery) was in pole position, it did not mean that the race was won! Firstly because a little ten miles from their transom, the tandem Simon-Lagravière (Brittany - CMB Performance) was a bit faster, then because there were grains to negotiate and sargassum plates to cross…
The playground becomes more and more rugged: the swell is compressed on the West Indian arc, the waves are recovering under the pressure of tonic trade winds, the breeze is waking up especially at nightfall under grains more and more consistent , the ocean is punctuated by "adhesive tapes", these clusters of aggregates, clusters of agglomerates, these veins of devein: sargasses come to spice up this arrival scheduled for Thursday, May 10, just before the time of ti-punch , a brutal transition between salty and sweet, between oceanic sloshing and hierarchical balloting, between Atlantic movement and terrestrial upheaval ...
Best time
And if the time is not yet to cheers and cheers (it will wait until 17:00 local time), the reference time that will achieve the first will be frankly pulverized: we must go back to 2006 when Kito de Pavant and Pietro D'Ali won in Saint-Barthélemy in 19 days 22 hours 24 minutes and 30 seconds! This means that this fourteenth edition of the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE has set the pace: since the departure of Concarneau on April 22, the sixteen duos in the running have almost never left their spinnaker.
And with this stimulating tempo, no less than fourteen Figaro Bénéteau will improve this reference, because even the couple Tanguy Le Turquais & Clarisse Crémer (Everial) who makes 150 miles to the leaders should conclude before Friday night ... It will then remain at sea only the Mathieu Claveau & Pierre Loulier duo (Les Frigos Solidaires) and Guillaume Farsy & Renaud Nicot (Cornouaille-Solidarité Saint Barth) who have opted for very different paths, more than 400 miles North-South from each other !
Control and marking
Let's not fool ourselves: the hierarchy has been clearly established since last night's cropping. Leading for days, Adrien Hardy and Thomas Ruyant (Agir Recovery) went from "wind mode" to "control mode": once marked the advantage of the North Way (a reference to the breath of the Vendée Globe?), the two friends focused on the delta that separates them from the duo Sébastien Simon & Morgan Lagravière (Bretagne CMB Performance). We know these two extremely velar Figarists, and the differential of ten miles can thus quickly melt: the West Indian canals (passages between the islands) are often devious, the volcanic reliefs sometimes flabby, the currents sometimes matois, the benches of seaweed constantly cautious ...
To control a competitor is to stay between his position and the mark to be prepared, in this case, the island of Saint-Barthélemy. This is what the tandem leader does, but when there is more than one opponent, the marking becomes more complex. Gildas Mahe & Nicolas Troussel (Breizh Cola) know that they continue to stand out from the South, an option at risk however since they themselves must look in their rearview mirror the trajectory of their pursuers, Pierre Leboucher & Christopher Pratt (Guyot Environnement): only five small miles separated them from the goal on Wednesday afternoon ...
Serial duels
And this problem of transmuting from a hoped-for score to a "panty" marking is reiterated for the following: what about the fight between Erwan Tabarly and Thierry Chabagny (Armor Lux-Gedimat) against the tight-knit couple formed by Anthony Marchand & Alexis Loison (Royer-Secours Populaire Group) and Corentin Douguet & Christian Ponthieu (NF Habitat)? The latter follow the lead of the leaders when the title holders opted for the North. And within the pack, the duels have become topical: Justine Mettraux & Isabelle Joschke (TeamWork) want to destabilize Ronan Treussart & Simon Troel (The Pearls of St. Barts). Just like the Ministries Thomas Dolan and Tanguy Bouroullec (Smurfit Kappa-Cerfrance) cover their pursuers, the duo Loïs Berrehar & Erwan Draoulec (Concarneau Entreprendre) as well as Pierre Rhimbault & Romain Attanasio (Brittany CMB Espoir)!
The next night announces some obscure insights into the definition each crew gives of control, marking and the optimal route. In any case, Gustavia is already preparing for anthology finals as only the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE is likely to initiate: grouped arrivals, even tight, tense finish successions, strings crossed edges, processional strings on this day of Ascension ... And let's not leave aside a parameter that is too often forgotten: once the island is dressed, it will be necessary to lower the spinnaker and go upwind, against a rather muscular trade wind, towards a finish line wet in the heart of the port of Gustavia!
About 300 miles from goal this afternoon (metropolitan time), the leaders of this fourteenth edition of the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE have planned to cut the finish line at Gustavia-Saint Barthélemy around 17:00 local Thursday, May 10 (23:00 Paris). But if the duo Hardy-Ruyant (Agir Recovery) was in pole position, it did not mean that the race was won! Firstly because a little ten miles from their transom, the tandem Simon-Lagravière (Brittany - CMB Performance) was a bit faster, then because there were grains to negotiate and sargassum plates to cross…
The playground becomes more and more rugged: the swell is compressed on the West Indian arc, the waves are recovering under the pressure of tonic trade winds, the breeze is waking up especially at nightfall under grains more and more consistent , the ocean is punctuated by "adhesive tapes", these clusters of aggregates, clusters of agglomerates, these veins of devein: sargasses come to spice up this arrival scheduled for Thursday, May 10, just before the time of ti-punch , a brutal transition between salty and sweet, between oceanic sloshing and hierarchical balloting, between Atlantic movement and terrestrial upheaval ...
Best time
And if the time is not yet to cheers and cheers (it will wait until 17:00 local time), the reference time that will achieve the first will be frankly pulverized: we must go back to 2006 when Kito de Pavant and Pietro D'Ali won in Saint-Barthélemy in 19 days 22 hours 24 minutes and 30 seconds! This means that this fourteenth edition of the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE has set the pace: since the departure of Concarneau on April 22, the sixteen duos in the running have almost never left their spinnaker.
And with this stimulating tempo, no less than fourteen Figaro Bénéteau will improve this reference, because even the couple Tanguy Le Turquais & Clarisse Crémer (Everial) who makes 150 miles to the leaders should conclude before Friday night ... It will then remain at sea only the Mathieu Claveau & Pierre Loulier duo (Les Frigos Solidaires) and Guillaume Farsy & Renaud Nicot (Cornouaille-Solidarité Saint Barth) who have opted for very different paths, more than 400 miles North-South from each other !
Control and marking
Let's not fool ourselves: the hierarchy has been clearly established since last night's cropping. Leading for days, Adrien Hardy and Thomas Ruyant (Agir Recovery) went from "wind mode" to "control mode": once marked the advantage of the North Way (a reference to the breath of the Vendée Globe?), the two friends focused on the delta that separates them from the duo Sébastien Simon & Morgan Lagravière (Bretagne CMB Performance). We know these two extremely velar Figarists, and the differential of ten miles can thus quickly melt: the West Indian canals (passages between the islands) are often devious, the volcanic reliefs sometimes flabby, the currents sometimes matois, the benches of seaweed constantly cautious ...
To control a competitor is to stay between his position and the mark to be prepared, in this case, the island of Saint-Barthélemy. This is what the tandem leader does, but when there is more than one opponent, the marking becomes more complex. Gildas Mahe & Nicolas Troussel (Breizh Cola) know that they continue to stand out from the South, an option at risk however since they themselves must look in their rearview mirror the trajectory of their pursuers, Pierre Leboucher & Christopher Pratt (Guyot Environnement): only five small miles separated them from the goal on Wednesday afternoon ...
Serial duels
And this problem of transmuting from a hoped-for score to a "panty" marking is reiterated for the following: what about the fight between Erwan Tabarly and Thierry Chabagny (Armor Lux-Gedimat) against the tight-knit couple formed by Anthony Marchand & Alexis Loison (Royer-Secours Populaire Group) and Corentin Douguet & Christian Ponthieu (NF Habitat)? The latter follow the lead of the leaders when the title holders opted for the North. And within the pack, the duels have become topical: Justine Mettraux & Isabelle Joschke (TeamWork) want to destabilize Ronan Treussart & Simon Troel (The Pearls of St. Barts). Just like the Ministries Thomas Dolan and Tanguy Bouroullec (Smurfit Kappa-Cerfrance) cover their pursuers, the duo Loïs Berrehar & Erwan Draoulec (Concarneau Entreprendre) as well as Pierre Rhimbault & Romain Attanasio (Brittany CMB Espoir)!
The next night announces some obscure insights into the definition each crew gives of control, marking and the optimal route. In any case, Gustavia is already preparing for anthology finals as only the Transat AG2R LA MONDIALE is likely to initiate: grouped arrivals, even tight, tense finish successions, strings crossed edges, processional strings on this day of Ascension ... And let's not leave aside a parameter that is too often forgotten: once the island is dressed, it will be necessary to lower the spinnaker and go upwind, against a rather muscular trade wind, towards a finish line wet in the heart of the port of Gustavia!
KevinS
Senior Insider
Two updates from on the water, translated by Google:
Miguel Danet on Le Macaron - The expect to arrive in SBH at about 06:00 on Friday. Check the St Barth Sailor FB page for a livestream of the arrival:
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/ac...ephone-mercredi-10-mai-a-16h/_R_202_2292_.php
"In two days normally, we are in St. Barts. We try to arrive as quickly as possible. It's a fast lounger. It's the last one with the Figaro Bénéteau 2 and it's always good for the story. At this moment, we have 18 to 20 knots: we had a lot of grains tonight, a phenomenon quite sturdy: we had to really pay attention. Since that night, we are starting to have Sargassum. We did not have too much when we were further north. There, we watch every hour and we spend a knot rope, it's always better. I think everyone will go outside the big pack of seaweed according to the routing. On arrival, the passage to Colombier is always a little tricky then the last straight until the finish can give rise to a match. We had seen it two years ago and this year it can be the same: as there is a small gap between Agir Recovery and Brittany CMB Performance, it promises a beautiful finale! "
Isabelle Joschke on Teamwork:
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/ac...lephone-mercredi-9-mai-a-16h/_R_202_2291_.php
"It's a bit of a final rush. We have wind, beautiful grains ... it's super active. We have the impression that there are still small shots to play so we are on it and we do not let go. There is grain to grind. It is certain that we are several competitors to be close enough to the goal. We have not bad chained jibeings lately but I can not tell you which road we will choose! In our small group, we are relatively north of our direct competitors. At one point, that was our bias. Now, we will try to negotiate the rest according to what will come next. It's been three days since we cross waters where there are more or less Sargassum. We do not have big plates yet but we are seeing more and more, especially today. If we are faster this year on this transat, it is thanks to the conditions that we had since the gun-shot: there was a departure not very windy but it was not very long. And then, it slipped and it was very nice ... "
Note: I'm not sure of the proper translation of the French word "grains" in this context. Google Translate ain't even trying. There are multiple translations of the word, and so far I've been thinking that "squalls" is the correct one. I think that perhaps "strong winds" or "strong gusts" might be better. Ellen? Cassidain? Pascale?
Miguel Danet on Le Macaron - The expect to arrive in SBH at about 06:00 on Friday. Check the St Barth Sailor FB page for a livestream of the arrival:
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/ac...ephone-mercredi-10-mai-a-16h/_R_202_2292_.php
"In two days normally, we are in St. Barts. We try to arrive as quickly as possible. It's a fast lounger. It's the last one with the Figaro Bénéteau 2 and it's always good for the story. At this moment, we have 18 to 20 knots: we had a lot of grains tonight, a phenomenon quite sturdy: we had to really pay attention. Since that night, we are starting to have Sargassum. We did not have too much when we were further north. There, we watch every hour and we spend a knot rope, it's always better. I think everyone will go outside the big pack of seaweed according to the routing. On arrival, the passage to Colombier is always a little tricky then the last straight until the finish can give rise to a match. We had seen it two years ago and this year it can be the same: as there is a small gap between Agir Recovery and Brittany CMB Performance, it promises a beautiful finale! "
Isabelle Joschke on Teamwork:
http://transat.ag2rlamondiale.fr/ac...lephone-mercredi-9-mai-a-16h/_R_202_2291_.php
"It's a bit of a final rush. We have wind, beautiful grains ... it's super active. We have the impression that there are still small shots to play so we are on it and we do not let go. There is grain to grind. It is certain that we are several competitors to be close enough to the goal. We have not bad chained jibeings lately but I can not tell you which road we will choose! In our small group, we are relatively north of our direct competitors. At one point, that was our bias. Now, we will try to negotiate the rest according to what will come next. It's been three days since we cross waters where there are more or less Sargassum. We do not have big plates yet but we are seeing more and more, especially today. If we are faster this year on this transat, it is thanks to the conditions that we had since the gun-shot: there was a departure not very windy but it was not very long. And then, it slipped and it was very nice ... "
Note: I'm not sure of the proper translation of the French word "grains" in this context. Google Translate ain't even trying. There are multiple translations of the word, and so far I've been thinking that "squalls" is the correct one. I think that perhaps "strong winds" or "strong gusts" might be better. Ellen? Cassidain? Pascale?
KevinS
Senior Insider
This is my last look tonight, the 23:00 update. I thought earlier that Bretagne CMB Performance was reeling in Agir Recouvrement, but that isn’t the case. Agir has nearly doubled their lead, and is now in front by 17nm, with 173nm left to sail.
I’ll be looking at the early morning position fixes to see how the day will progress. Right now, it looks like Agir will cross the finish line some time after 17:00, but there’s still a whole night and day of wind shifts, tactics, and sargassum between them and the finish line.
I’ll be looking at the early morning position fixes to see how the day will progress. Right now, it looks like Agir will cross the finish line some time after 17:00, but there’s still a whole night and day of wind shifts, tactics, and sargassum between them and the finish line.
Izzy
Senior Insider
"Il y a du grain à moudre" - the "grains to grind" is an expression (donner du grains à moudre) that means give grains to the mill for grinding - the grains are what is needed to grind (do what one is doing). For a sailor, the wind is the "grain" that must be given to the "mill" - the sails. So the breezes for this race have been and continue to be "beautiful grains" that have powered a fast crossing.
BTW, Isabelle does some grinding too - on the winches - to make the most of the grain/wind but I think it is just happenstance that the expression she uses works on that level too.
Nice job with the coverage of the race!
KevinS
Senior Insider
The morning shows that Agir Recouvrement has put a little bit more ocean between itself and Bretagne CMB Performance, with a lead of almost 13nm. At this pace, look for a finish somewhere around 17:00 - 18:00 tonight. The race record will be shattered by not only the winning host, but most of the rest of the fleet may beat it too. It’s been an exceptionally fast crossing, with the boats mostly under spinnaker.
