It’s a cruel scenario, the final wind-lacking 70–miles of Stage 3 of the Solo URGO Figaro 2018 from northwest Spain across the Bay of Biscay to Saint-Gilles in the northwest of France’s Vendee region writes W M Nixon. We may feel the pain for Ireland’s Tom Dolan. He was looking at fifth place with Smurfit Kappa at one brief stage during the small hours of this morning. But then he lost the pace to slip back to 14th. Now, however, he is looking better. On a nice angle in a private breeze, for the moment there’s hope.
But overnight leader Thierry Chabagny’s fall from grace has been pretty well total during this Tuesday of Tribulations. The 46-year-old veteran of 17 Figaros has only once got on the podium after taking a stage place in the 2006 race. Yet he keeps coming back for more. For long enough it looked as though he could just possibly dream of a stage win. Even his opponents hoped for it. But currently he’s at 25th, out on his own to the north of the fleet, and with options closing as they crawl towards the turn at the Ile d’Yeu, the chances of getting back in the hunt lessen by the hour.
That said, there’ll be many hours when unicorn events may occur, judging by any of the weather predictions which all agree on light breezes or none at all, with the possibility of zephyr-like direct headwinds in the night. Spinnaker skills, untested on this leg thus far, may not be needed until Ile d’Yeu is astern. Meanwhile, at Saint-Gilles the Mayor, Francois Blanchet, has officially opened the Race Village, which will be heaving with conviviality for the next six days, as the final 165-mile sprint stage starts and ends at Saint-Gillles before the overall winner is declared.
It emerges that His Worship the Mayor is a former sailing journalist. What were we saying about unicorn events? If a sailing journalist can become the First Citizen of a coastal township, then all things are possible…….
We go into Night 4 with the highly-tipped Sebastien Simon back in the lead, but he’s at less than three knots, and there are a dozen boats within five miles of him, some of them currently going faster. Even as we’ve been writing this and wondering how we’d look in a Mayoral Chain of Office, Tom Dolan has got back up to 11th. But alas the gallant Joan Mulloy, having staved off the Scottish challenge for 300 miles, has now been passed by Alan Roberts who is 29th, while the Maid of Mayo is 31st.
Race tracker here
