Irish offshore sailor Tom Dolan and Gildas Mahé finished 14th on the second leg of L’Aventura after a bold move west in the Bay of Biscay cost the Kingspan duo places on the 783-mile race from Lagos to Île d’Yeu.

The result came two weeks after Afloat reported Dolan's fourth-place finish on the opening leg, when he and Mahé finished just two minutes outside the podium after 1,600 miles from Port-Bourgenay to Lagos.

Dolan and Mahé crossed the finish line off Île d’Yeu at 5.56 am on Saturday after a demanding return north that included prolonged upwind sailing along the Portuguese coast and increasingly light conditions in the Bay of Biscay.

“It's a good thing the start was brought forward by 24 hours. Otherwise, I think we'd still be out there!” Dolan joked a few hours after finishing.

Dolan and Mahé Stay in Touch Upwind

The second leg was expected to be very different from the long opening race south to Portugal, and that proved to be the case from the outset.

Dolan and Mahé faced hours of upwind sailing and repeated tacking along the Portuguese coast but remained in contention as the fleet headed towards northern Spain.

Race Debrief: Gildas Mahé ashore after he and Tom Dolan completed the second leg of L’Aventura in 14th place aboard Kingspan. Photo: Luis Fráguas

“The first half, up to the north of Spain, was already quite complicated,” Dolan said. “We weren't at our best, but we managed to come through it around fifth or sixth, so it wasn't too bad.”

The tactical picture changed significantly in the Bay of Biscay, where a ridge of high pressure began to spread out what had previously been a tightly packed fleet. Crews had to decide whether to stay on a shorter route and risk lighter winds or sail additional miles in search of stronger pressure. Dolan and Mahé chose the latter and headed west.

“We'd been looking at the situation for a few days and increasingly felt that the option was to cross the ridge as quickly as possible,” Dolan said. “So that's what we did.”

Western Option Pushed Too Far

The stronger wind Dolan and Mahé were seeking did materialise, and for a time their western route remained promising.

Dolan said afterwards that the problem was not necessarily the initial tactical choice, but how the pair managed it once committed to the west.

“I don't think the problem was really choosing that option. We just didn't manage it well,” he said.

“We clearly should have cut the corner more, but we got drawn into our match with Région Normandie and that made us sail far too much extra distance. There was a point when we could still have crossed ahead of quite a few boats.”

Their battle with Paul Cousin and Édouard Golbery ultimately took Kingspan too far from the direct route, allowing several rivals to gain and leaving Dolan and Mahé 14th at the finish.

Dolan nevertheless believed the gamble was viable. “It could have paid off,” he said.

He cited the progress of Hugo Dhallenne and Chloé Le Bars as an example of just how dramatically the tactical picture changed.

“At one point, I was looking at Hugo Dhallenne and Chloé Le Bars' routing and saying to Gildas, ‘They're going to lose 24 hours there!’ And in the end, they win the leg. It's completely crazy. It shows once again just how quickly everything can change.”

Dolan Back Up to Speed

Despite the second-leg result, L’Aventura has provided Dolan with an important return to offshore competition following the grounding of Kingspan in the Raz de Sein during June's Solitaire du Figaro, as reported by Afloat. Dolan had been leading the provisional overall standings when the incident brought his campaign to an abrupt halt. It took ten days to recover the boat before PL Yachting carried out the work.

The fourth place on L’Aventura's opening leg offered the first strong indication that Kingspan was back up to speed, while the return leg provided another six days of demanding racing.

Back Up To Speed: Kingspan powers upwind with Tom Dolan and Gildas Mahé aboard during L’Aventura, where the pair completed two demanding offshore legs. Photo: Luis Fráguas

“It was very intense,” Dolan said. “In double-handed racing, you push each other more, and the pace stays high almost all the time."

“The race was too short to settle into the rhythm of a transatlantic and really organise your sleep, but long enough to build up a lot of fatigue. And because the boats are all going at almost the same speed, the slightest mistake costs you immediately.”

Dolan also highlighted the continuing risk of interactions with orcas off the Iberian Peninsula. “It's becoming a real issue in this area,” he said.

For Dolan, however, one of the principal positives was confirmation that Kingspan had returned to competitive form after the problems of June.

“It's good to see the boat in good condition and to feel that it's going fast,” he said.

With L’Aventura completed, Dolan is now due to undertake public relations commitments in Lorient and Marseille before joining Jérémie Beyou to assist with weather preparation ahead of the Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe.