The four Ultimes engaged on The Bridge - Actual (Yves le Blévec), Idec Sport (Francis Joyon), Sodebo (Thomas Coville) and Macif (François Gabart) - reached the Quai du Commerce during the night of 23rd to 24th June, at midnight tide. Now in Saint-Nazaire, they are awaiting the departure which will take place this Sunday 25th June to cross the Atlantic in strange weather conditions, and reach New York. From Sunday at 7 pm, the four crews will have to negotiate a light to moderate north-westerly to northerly breeze, in order to leave the Loire estuary on the fly, alongside the Queen Mary 2.
"The Bridge will really be the first confrontation we'll have in Ultimate trimarans! These extraordinary boats are designed for single-handed races and in particular for a round the world voyage. The Ultim Collective has indeed planned for 2019, but the starting point for this programme is THE BRIDGE, a crewed race: I've therefore briefed my crew on safety and the weather to focus on the match" said Thomas Coville.
Four Ultimate, but different trajectories
But they will not follow the same trajectory since the liner armed by the British company Cunard will be able to take the orthodromic (direct route) without worrying about the weather conditions. Whilst the Ultimers will have to deal with a zone of calm off the Bay of Biscay from the early hours of the night: this configuration could prompt Francis Joyon (IDEC Sport), François Gabart (MACIF), Thomas Coville (Sodebo Ultim') and Yves Le Blévec (Actual) to choose different routes! The solo round the world record holder, Thomas Coville, announced on Friday that he had opted for the northern route, when some of the crew of the crewed round the world record holder, Francis Joyon, were leaning towards a southern route.
"It's historic! We are one hundred years after the American landings that brought the First World War to a close and we have the first crewed Ultimate Multihull Race. The Queen Mary 2 has an average speed close to ours on such a course, while taking on board journalists and partners: it's an exceptional idea to create links with the public. And if we're lucky enough to come across each other in the middle of the Atlantic, that's great! And let's not forget that there are two boats present here in Saint-Nazaire, which have achieved extraordinary records around the world, both solo (Sodebo Ultim') and with a crew (IDEC Sport)" said François Gabart.
For the time being, the data on the Atlantic Ocean remain to be clarified. A low with a slight gradient will pass along the route to The Bridge from Monday evening, while the Azores High, spread out from Spain to the Caribbean, will gradually retract in on itself. Going through the North means making sure there is a fairly steady W'ly breeze, which is the opposite; slipping along to the South means being pushed along by the NE'ly to E'ly tradewinds. However, the choice of whether to set off to the right or left of the direct route taken by the titan of the seas must be decided almost after the liberating gunshot! Indeed, though these two routes will be separated laterally by nearly 1,000 miles, it's above all the landfall on the American coast that matters.
A fight already lost?
The Queen Mary 2 will sail to New York on the 1st.. er july (at 8:00 a.m. local time) and will average about 550 miles per day for a 5-day, 7 p.m. crossing. She will sail at an average speed of 23 knots, but in a straight line.
The Ultimate trimarans will not benefit from ideal weather conditions to follow him and especially not the same regularity. Quite simply already, as they won't be going in a straight line as they have to sail against the prevailing winds. However, it is already certain that the multihulls will sometimes lengthen their stride to more than 40 knots and cover days at more than 700 miles. The difficulty will be to know which way to approach Long Island, knowing that an ice exclusion zone (south of Newfoundland, due to the icebergs carried away by the cold Labrador Current) limits the possibilities from the North.
"On the routing today, we're rather on a northerly route which would take us to New York after eight or nine days at sea because it's starting off rather slowly, but the race is above all between the four of us: at the moment, we don't have the possibility, with the forecast announced, of arriving before the Queen Mary 2. That doesn't take anything away from the match that we're going to experience between the four of us, with trajectories that may well differ", said Thomas Coville (Sodebo Ultim') at the press conference on 23 June.
As for the southern route, it's not easy with the implosion of the Azores High at the end of next week. Between Bermuda and the Big Apple, the wind is hardly responding this weekend... In fact, the skippers seem to be counting on a crossing in eight full days, but what's important on this transatlantic race, THE BRIDGE, is the average speeds achieved by the Ultimate trimarans and the distance covered in one day over these 3150 miles from Saint Nazaire to New York.
