"Thibaut Vauchel-Camus only really broke away from Phil Sharp when the latter tore his mainsail and from Louis Duc who went south two days ago.”
20.05.2016
Solidaires wins in 17 and a half days on this Atlantic crossing, the final outcome of which was decided off Newfoundland.
It took Thibaut Vauchel-Camus 17 days 12 hours 42 minutes and 56 seconds to cover the 3,804 miles between Plymouth and New York at an average speed of 9.04 knots on the water. A rather tense trajectory, given that the direct route was only 3,050 miles long, but full of zigzags due to the passage of four lows and an eventful end to the course in the Gulf Stream and a laborious one in an alternation of fronts and calms.
The skipper from Saint Malo, who spent most of his youth in Guadeloupe, was always up with the frontrunners from the start, oscillating between first and third place in the company of Isabelle Joschke and Briton Phil Sharp. The three of them, followed by the pack, made a long sinusoidal course to take advantage of the downwind conditions in the English Channel, then to negotiate a nasty low-pressure area off the Azores and finally to sail along the ice exclusion zone off Newfoundland. It was at this point that the sailor was forced to retire due to an ingress of water, and the match turned into a duel with the Briton as far as the longitude of Nova Scotia, when he tore his mainsail as he passed through a rough front.
But the outcome was not yet written, as 200 miles further south, Louis Duc had single-handedly followed a route which still left opportunities for victory... And until two days before his arrival, Thibaut Vauchel-Camus still couldn't shake off the worry of a southerly return. It wasn't until the NE'ly air flow returned 200 miles from New York that the skipper of Solidaires en peloton-ARSEP was able to sail more serenely with a margin of around fifty miles. Finally at the finish anchored by the Sandy Hook Pilot Association, the Class40 winner crossed the line on Thursday at 22h 12' 56'' (i.e. Friday at 4h 12' 56'' French time) and had a lead of over sixty miles over Louis Duc (expected in around ten hours) and 140 miles over Phil Sharp (expected on Saturday morning).
