The first 24 hours of the 12th edition of the offshore Transat Jacques Vabre race, the two handed race from Le Havre in France to Itajaí, Brazil have been fast in a building breeze and at least some of the fleet is heading to Cork Harbour and, most likely, Royal Cork Yacht Club for safety.
But the Bay of Biscay and an Atlantic low pressure system will hit most of the fleet this evening and tomorrow bringing building seas and big winds with gusts over 40kts. There is no big surprise in store. The ominous system has been lurking west of Ireland for some time, but is only moving slowly SE before it fills and loses some of its intensity later on Tuesday. But the duos in all four classes have been preparing as best they can for the tough conditions, drysuits and boots are on now and may be for 48 hours or more.
Jackson Bouttell (GBR/AUS) and Gildas Mahé (FRA) on the Ker designed Concise 8 informed their Team Concise directors that they have sustained damage and are heading for Cork 120 miles to their NE.
The two co-skippers are in regular contact with Transat Jacques Vabre Race Direction and are not injured in any way and expect to reach the Irish haven by mid morning Tuesday. A full assessment of the extent of the damage will be made on arrival. They anticipate missing the worst of the imminent strong winds. Further details will be released Tuesday morning.
A number of retirements and damage reports. Fortunately no injuries reported:
* Maitre CoQ Retire
Following the damage that happened at around 2300hrs yesterday evening to a mainstay attachment, Jeremie Beyou and Philippe Legros, who were in 4th place, were forced to make their way to Roscoff, which they reached this morning at 0830hrs. The shore team and suppliers analysed the situation and attempted to replace the faulty part.
In spite of their hard work, late today they were unable to guarantee that the replacement part would be solid enough to allow the two sailors to head back out to sea without any worries. The situation was in fact all the more tense with the weather that has been forecast for the coming hours, as Maître CoQ would have likely faced some strong winds (30 - 40 knots) with a wave height of 6-7 metres
* Damage on Safran, heading to Brest
At 2020 hrs CET this evening, Morgan Lagravière, skipper of the IMOCA 60 Safran, contacted the Transat Jacques Vabre Race Directors to inform them there had been some damage aboard.
The crew (Morgan Lagravière and Nicolas Lunven) has taken the decision to head for Brest. Both skippers are fine and the conditions should allow them to reach the Breton port.
* Edmond de Rothschild Abandon in the IMOCA class
Leaders of the more westerly group of the IMOCA fleet of the Transat Jacques Vabre, Sebastien Josse and Charles Caudrelier have confirmed they have abandoned the race. They are the second of the 20 IMOCA 60s which started Sunday from Le Havre to retire. The pair made the difficult choice which was dictated by good seamanship and their aim to bring the newest Gitana back to port safely.
Sebastien Josse explained the reasons:
"Since the afternoon we had a series of incidents aboard Edmond de Rothschild. Taken individually these problems are quite minor and if we had better weather we could probably put them right. But all added up to one another and given the weather conditions we see these incidents as potentially endangering us and the boat. The weather files show more than 40kts of wind at times and seven metre seas. Charles and I consider it would not be responsible to carry on in these conditions. The boat was only launched two and a half months ago, and despite all the work which was done by the Gitana team to optimises and be ready is so short a time, these are problems associated with a recently launched boat. The decision to abandon was a very hard one but we do not want to jeopardise more than a year of hard work. The boat was designed for the Vendee Globe and that remains the major objective of the team. It is hard to retire but we must not lose sight of that as the goal."
* Prince de Bretagne Capsize, Skippers safe
The Ultime trimaran of Lionel Lemonchois and Roland Jourdain has capsized while they were 140 miles off La Coruna. The two co-skippers are safe and have taken shelter inside the trimaran. They have not requested assistance and their technical team is making every effort to organise help to rescue them and their vessel. At the time of the incident the boat was upwind in 20 to 25kts of SSW'ly wind.
