Conquers 60-strong fleet over 350 mile course
Didier Gaudoux’s new MN35 Lann Ael 3 won the first race of the inaugural Two-Handed IRC European Championship with a commanding lead. Sailing with Gildas Morvan as co-skipper, the overall winner of the 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race took line honours by an impressive six hour margin, plus victory after IRC time correction by almost three hours at the end of a 350 mile course from the south Breton port of La Trinité to Cowes.
It might therefore be tempting to assume this was a race in which higher-rated boats were advantaged. However, two of the lowest-rated entries, Jean-François Chériaux JPK 1010 Ad Hoc and Ludovic Menahes’ Raphael, were exceptionally quick throughout and took second and third places on corrected time respectively.
La Trinité-Cowes Race Results
Ad Hoc was never afraid to sail her own course, for instance, offshore after the Quiberon peninsula a few miles from the start and inshore off the Anse de Benodet on the south Finistere coast and was consistently among the top five on the water from the outset. Another of the slower-rated boats, Hervé Bihan-Poudec ’s J/99 Leonard, was also very well placed early on leading on the water as they approached the Pointe de Penmarch headland roughly 12 hours into the race.
However, before the leaders reached the headland, around dawn on the first morning, an undulating weather front moved across the fleet creating calm patches that resulted in several boats briefly drifting backwards on the tide. Those furthest offshore, notably Yann Jestin’s Sun Fast 3600 Vari, came out with a big advantage. Jestin was first past the headland, with a lead of more than an hour on the water ahead of Ad Hoc, another JPK 1010, Vincent Gautier/Antoine Huchet’s Papillon 4, and Chinese sailor Lin Jiang’s JPK 1030 Min River, with French professional sailor Aymeric Belloir as her co-skipper.
Lann Ael 3 also made big gains here, then overhauled Vari by the time they reached the notorious Raz de Sein 20 miles to the north-west of Penmarch. From here Lann Ael 3 sped north, extending her lead on the water and carrying fair tide all the way out into the open waters of the English Channel. Sadly electrical problems forced Vari to retire at this stage, leaving Ad Hoc in fourth place on the water.
Gaudoux continued to stretch away from his competitors and by mid-morning of the second day was off Portland Bill, with favourable tide and hitting speeds of more than 15 knots over the ground. With the race finishing on the Royal Yacht Squadron line at Cowes, there was potential for a final roll of the dice. Lann Ael 3 carried the tide almost all the way from Portland, but an adverse stream had started to build in the final few miles. Would the peleton reach the Needles with a favourable stream and therefore make a useful gain?
Geoffrey Thiriez’s Figaro 2 Terre d’Enfants sur l’Atlantique was second across the line, followed nine minutes later by Ludovic Gerard’s JPK 1080 Solenn for Pure Ocean. However, after time correction these slipped to 13th and 6th respectively. Min River was next to finish, taking fifth place on corrected time, the sole non-French boat in the top 14.
Owner Lin Jiang is now based in Australia, where she took the prize for top female skipper at the 2020 Sydney Harbour regatta and has since won a string of trophies, including Ocean Racing Rookie of the Year. Ad Hoc crossed the line only 10 minutes behind Jiang to take second place after time correction, more than an hour ahead of Raphael, but three hours behind Lann Aer 3.
“We have been lucky – we have the boat with the highest rating, made a good choice of the route and once we were ahead we had more wind than the others,” says Gaudoux. After a beat all the way to the top of the Chanel du Four, once into the English Channel Lann Aer 3 was able to sail the rest of the course at an optimal wind angle of 140-145 degrees, with only one gybe to the finish. With the wind mostly hovering around 15-18 knots, other than a brief period with 20-24 knots, she made brisk progress, with boat speed exceeding 15 knots in the strongest puffs, and, importantly, maintaining a fast average.
A key element was in handling the difficult transition when the front came through after the first night at sea. How confident was Gaudoux that going offshore here was the correct move? “It was a very tricky situation, but we decided to go offshore,” he says, “as we didn’t want to risk being stuck in the bay off Benodet. We were the most westerly boat and it was really painful when we were doing two knots, but when we got the new wind it lifted us all the time in the right direction – in French we call it making a course the shape of a spoon.
“I think we did a good job there and once we were in front we had more favourable current for longer, and everything else was benefitting us as well. We've been lucky.”
The largest contingent of non-French entries, totalling 30 per cent of the fleet, was from the UK, while Jonathan McKee’s American Sun Fast 3300 Red Ruby was second-best placed non French boat after Min River, finishing 15th on corrected time, just five minutes ahead of Nick Martin and Cal Finlayson on the Sun Fast 3600 Diablo. Kate Cope's Sun Fast 3200 Purple Mist, with Matt Beecher, one of 11 young sailors under 26 in the British fleet, showed promise in the early stages, climbing into the top 10 after executing a fast rounding of the Quiberon peninsula. However she then slipped down the fleet as a result of staying further inshore than was optimal.
Conditions look likely to be very different for the second and final race of the championship – the 150 mile Cowes Dinard St Malo, which starts mid-afternoon on Friday July 7. Light airs last year strongly favoured the slower boats in the fleet and the championship is still wide open.