9 participations and a first victory for Lalou Roucayrol
Nothing is ever played on the big ocean races. And this 13th edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre confirms it... Lalou Roucayrol, a great multihull specialist after 30 years of sailing on this type of boat, has thus won his first victory on the coffee road. And this after 9 participations in the race. A well-deserved victory...
Lalou Roucayrol and his co-skipper Alex Pella started at the head of Le Havre and decided to seek "excellence" to win the race between France and Brazil. Favourites alongside Erwan Le Roux and Vincent Riou on FenêtréA - Mix Buffet, the two teams are in a breathless battle and share the lead of the race. Thanks to their respective experiences and a very good understanding on board, the two skippers were able to push their machine in the strong wind conditions she likes.
Before the Doldrums, Roucayrol/Pella are 100 miles behind, but keep a cool head knowing perfectly well that the Intertropical Convergence Zone can redistribute the cards. Penalized by a mainsail halyard damage, FenêtréA - Mix Buffet is losing ground. Arkema has covered 160 miles in 36 hours and becomes the leader as soon as the southern hemisphere tradewinds hit the ground, before reaching Salvador de Bahia as the winner...
And yet, on Arkema too, we have encountered problems such as penalizing electronic failures, particularly for the reception of weather files or two broken ribs for Alex Pella, injured during a manoeuvre. Karine Fauconnier, the Team's weather strategist, has played a key role in enabling the Multi50 in Arkema's colours to follow the best trajectories, those that lead to the first step of the podium.
Many records achieved on this crossing
In the process of being approved by the WSSRC (the body that validates sailing records), several records have been broken by the Roucayrol/Pella duo in this Transat Jacques Vabre. Starting with the Record of the distance covered in 24 hours in the Multi50 . The two sailors sailed 568 miles in 24 hours, beating the previous record of 524 miles, held since July 16, 2016 by Ciela Village (Thierry Bouchard) for the Québec/Saint-Malo race.
Arkema also established a new reference time on the Le Havre / Salvador de Bahia crossing with 10 days, 19 hours, 14 minutes and 19 seconds race, improving the previous record of 12 days, 06 hours, 13 minutes, held by Crêpes Whaou ! in 2005 with Franck-Yves and Kevin Escoffier
Finally, they also improve the average speed record on the Transat Jacques Vabre in the Multi50 with 16.81 knots on the orthodrome (direct route). The previous record was in the hands of Erwan Le Roux/Yann Eliès (FenêtréA-Cardinal) who had raced at an average speed of 15.3 knots in 2013 (on a longer course between Le Havre and Itajaí).
