Stage win, overall win
This Thursday, November 23, 2023 at 08:01 in Martinique, 13:01 in Paris, Ambrogio Beccaria and Nicolas Andrieu won the Transat Jacques Vabre in the Class40 category. The two skippers completed the transatlantic race in 18 days 12 hours 21 minutes 55 seconds, covering 5,381.51 miles at an average speed of 12.11 knots. Already first on the first leg between Le Havre and Lorient, the two men took a bold option just after the start, choosing a southerly route and battling against the northerly group. This group took second and third place on the leg, with Ian Lipinski and Antoine Carpentier on Crédit Mutuel, followed by Achille Nebout and Gildas Mahé on Amarris. The latter finished second overall, followed by Alberto Bona and Pablo Santurde del Arco on IBSA.
A paying southern option
This option paid off, enabling them to reach Fort-de-France - very - quickly downwind in the trade winds on their Class40, Alla Grande Pirelli. The boat, entirely designed and built in Italy, had already finished second on the podium in the last Route du Rhum, having just been launched in October 2022.
As for Ambrogio Beccaria, it's another victory after winning the 40' Malouine Lamotte. The Italian, who lives in Lorient, is continuing to build on his record of achievements, which includes podium finishes in his last three races.
The words of the winners
Nicolas : "It's a great feeling. And for me, crossing the line was also a feeling of deliverance, because I found the intensity of the competition extremely strong, with the boats close to us, as with the distant boats on opposite routes."
Ambrogio: " We've known for a few hours that we were going to win. We completely forbade ourselves from saying it. It's huge, it's beautiful! The roads were pretty much kif-kif in terms of probabilities. When we made the decision ten days ago, there was zero wind. Statistically, the southern route couldn't have been worse. And we'd already invested quite a few miles to get to the trade winds. We weren't going to throw them away to head north again. We felt it made more sense. We're doing the Jacques Vabre, we're going into the trade winds and we're staying there!"
