“
After less than twenty hours of racing, we are already in the Doldrums. We'll call it the Brittany Point Pot. It's the same. There are big clouds, there is no wind. And we don't know when we're going to get out of it
”. Smartphone in hand, Christopher Pratt showed off the dead calm that reigned in the English Channel at daybreak. The monohull of Jérémie Beyou and his co-skipper was treading water and the sails were breaking through a sea of oil. While waiting for Eole to be a little less stingy, Pratt preferred to smile: “
The only difference is that we're not alone this time. Thomas (Rouillard) and Morgan (Lagravière) are right there and then we have other boats there. This is great
". Beyou's partner refers to their crossing of the Doldrums of an unnamed galley that cost them victory two years ago in this same Transat Jacques Vabre.
At the forefront, the Ultim trimarans also struggled in the dark. “
Since the middle of the night, we stopped facing the current, we even started backing up so we decided to go back. We will try to go through the north of Ouessant, but for the moment we are not able to progress, ”
explained Franck Cammas.
Edmond de Rothschild
and his competitors had regained some speed (12 knots) in the morning. In the right package among the Class40s with Marie Riou (5th), Amélie Grassi had a rough night near the Channel Islands, trying to move forward. "
For the moment it is not very offshore racing.
We knit in the pebbles and see all the lights of the masts of our competitors.
I can tell you that nobody here has to sleep a lot because we see the headlamps on the decks of the boats all the time! ”
Explained the sailor of
La Boulangère Bio
.
Florian Gueguen and Raphael Auffret made a short stopover of four hours in Cherbourg to repair the bowsprit of
Equipe Voile Parkinson
.
However, it is already over for Louis Burton and Davy Beaudart who dismasted aboard
Bureau Vallée 3.
