After the arrival of MOD70 Drekan Energy (Eric Defert) in La Trinité-sur-Mer on Wednesday night, Eric de Turckheim’s Teasing Machine took monohull line honours in the Drheam Cup/Grand Prix de France au Large at 16:44:18 on Thursday (18 July).
The bulk of the fleet is still racing in light winds and is expected in La Trinité-sur-Mer by Saturday (20 July).
Just over half a day after Drekan Energy, who crossed the finish line in the early hours of Thursday, Teasing Machine finished with an elapsed time of two days, 59 minutes and 18 seconds at sea.
The large 54-foot Nivelt-Muratet design, which underwent a refit last winter, crossed the line near the entrance of La Trinité-sur-Mer in summery conditions, a far cry from those at the start in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin last Monday.
“This race has been very varied, and that’s precisely what has made it interesting, as there has been a lot of work for our navigator, Jean-Luc Nélias, but also on deck, with every manoeuvre possible for the crew,” said the owner and skipper of Teasing Machine, Eric de Turckheim.
“We set off with wind, we ploughed across to Shambles, then we had a long upwind leg to Wolf Rock, again in quite a lot of wind, slamming against the short seas. The last part of the race, on the other hand, was dead calm, with speeds dropping to 3-5 knots, particularly along Belle-Ile. In fact, we opted to sail between the island at the mainland, in the hope that if the wind really dropped, we’d be able to pick up some thermals near the coast.”
Although this final stretch of the 520-mile course was long, it didn’t spoil the pleasure for the skipper who will be aiming to win the Middle Sea Race in October, having already won it in 2022.
The skipper and crew of Teasing Machine celebrate their result in La Trinité-sur-Mer | Credit: Joao Eira-Velha/Drheam Cup 2024
“It took us a little while to finish, but at the end of the day, we’re happy to be first monohull,” he said. “Even if we didn’t have any real competition with boats our size, it’s always rewarding to win in real time, which has been the case in several races this year; it isn’t that often.”
Will the winners of the Round Ireland Race at the end of June in both corrected time and real time repeat the achievement in the Drheam Cup? The crew, which includes Jean-Luc Nélias, Laurent Pagès, Christian Ponthieu, Bertrand Castelnerac, Jean-Emmanuel Mazars, Paco Lepoutre, Quentin Bouchacourt, Jérôme Teillet and Alexandre de Girval, in addition to the skipper, certainly hopes to. They will have to wait for the finishing times of the other monohulls entered in the crewed IRC class to find out.
Follow the race on the tracking map, updated every 15 minutes, and get the latest updates via the Drheam Cup website.