Transat Jacques Vabre: Ultim maxi-trimarans bomb the Atlantic motorway

At 9 a.m. this Friday morning, Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier were still masterfully leading the Ultim fleet in the Transat Jacques Vabre. The

duo

have passed the Sao Pedro e Sao Paulo crossing point and are now moving north-west towards Martinique. Still at breakneck speed, at over 30 knots of speed in 13 knots of downwind wind. On Thursday, the flying maxi-trimaran designed by Guillaume Verdier swallowed more than 800 miles in 24 hours. Very strong. Apart from a damage, it is not clear what could deprive Cammas and Caudrelier of victory at Fort-de-France early next week.

Because their first pursuers, Armel Le Cléac'h and Kevin Escoffier, are 400 miles behind. But they too are sailing very quickly on the brand new

, flashed at 34.5 knots at 9 o'clock. Noticeably faster than the other new kid,

(34.8). Beneath their fighter-plane style bubble, François Gabart and Tom Laperche are 526 miles behind the leaders. Things go slower around 500 miles further south for Yves Le Blévec and Anthony Marchand on

(29 knots) who have just passed Thomas Coville and Thomas Rouxel (

, +1460 miles) who descend towards Trinidade and Martin Vaz .

Merciless with Jérémie Beyou and Christopher Pratt two years ago, the Doldrums this time was much more lenient for the first Imoca. The Charal duo didn't really suffer this time around, nor did their predecessors Thomas Rettant-Morgan Lagravière (LinkedOut) and Charlie Dalin-Paul Meilhat (Apivia). Only 40 miles separate LinkedOut from Charal, 3rd on the Fernando de Noronha road. A crossing point that is already in the retro of Ocean Fifty. The 15.24-meter trimarans are doing a series of gybes along the South America prohibited zone in a pleasant wind of around fifteen knots. Sébastien Rogues and Matthieu Souben (Primonial) are still ahead with 78.5 miles ahead of Erwan Le Roux and Xavier Macaire (Koesio) and 96.5 ahead of Sam Goodchild and Aymeric Chappellier (Leyton).In the fight for 5th place with Armel Tripon and Benoît Marie (Les P'tits Doudous), Thibault Vauchel Camus and Fred Duthil (Solidaires en Peloton-ARSEP) lost their large gennaker after trying to patch it up, in vain.

We will miss almost a week

Antoine Carpentier and Pablo Santurde Del Arco

The first Class40 monohulls have finally set sail for the West near the Cape Verde archipelago.

The fleet fell behind due to terrible conditions at the start of the race.

“In terms of

”slipped the leaders Antoine Carpentier and Pablo Santurde Del Arco (Redman) on Friday morning.

Note the beautiful descent of former ski champion Ivica Kostelic for his first Transat, 4th with Calliste Antoine (Croatia Full of Life), just 51.5 miles from the leaders.