First podium place

Phil Sharp reports on his 30 hour singlehanded match race in the second leg of the Mini class' Transgascogne race

In the final leg of the Trasgascogne race, the last qualifier before the Transat, I was delighted to finish a close third place in the final leg from Gijon back to Bourgenay, in which I match raced for second place solidly for a day and a half! This pushed my overall position to third, my first podium finish in the big fleet races. This is really encouraging just before the Mini Transat itself in such a competitive fleet and I am now really looking forward to the 4,200 mile grinder in September.

After rediscovering what an incredible city the Spanish town of Gijon really is, it was a shame to leave for the second leg of the Transgascogne so soon, which was a race directly from Gijon back to Bourgenay with no major mark to roundings. I had a lot of electronics issues in the first leg, where I finished fourth, but managed to get most of these sorted by race day.

I had my worst start by a long way, so tacked off behind the whole fleet to get in clean air in the one mile run up to the 'degagement' buoy marking our exit from Gijon. I was surprised to overtake literally the whole fleet and round the mark in 6th place about a minute behind the leader, Corentin Douguet on E.Leclerc Bouygues Telecom who had won the first leg by an impressive 1hr 40 minutes. Over the first few hours in the 230 mile course the fleet soon had gennakers set on a tight reach, and I picked off three boats to lie equal second with Aloys Claquin on Vecteur Plus - an identical Magnen design to me going pretty much identical speed! Corentin on the other hand had blistering reaching performance in his more powerful Manuard design prototype and disappeared over the horizon by night time.

Overnight Aloys and I swapped places a few times in a steady 10-15 knots of wind, and next light brought very gusty conditions with some big squalls and torrential rain. Normally I don’t enjoy rain but today I was sailing towards the darkest clouds it in the hunt for the most wind. It was quite an amazing sensation screaming along at about 12 knots in absolute torrential rain, unable to see anything, and sailing as hot as possible to keep Aloys behind me. By midday the squalls disappeared and the wind changed to light and variable. After extending my lead over Vecteur Plus it was really depressing to sail into a wind hole, stop moving completely and then see Aloys pick up a wind line and sail passed me at 6 knots, only 50m to port!

After an intense side-by-side battle for 30 hours at the helm I got 20 minutes sleep before my next attack to take back second. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and pulled back to re-overtake Vecteur Plus to windward. He then made a good tactical decision to change to the jib briefly and climbed up above me, passing just a few boatlengths behind. The shift worked in his favour and once more he look the lead over me - this was getting pretty frustrating but was awesome racing, both of us just pushing one another the whole way and not giving an inch. We didn’t know it then but we had meanwhile taken big chunks out of E.Leclerc’s lead, and he was now only about 30 minutes ahead.

At dusk the wind veered so it was close-hauled to the finish for the last 30 miles. Unfortunately because Aloys had climbed upwind of me it worked in his favour, and he kept his lead over me all the way to the finish. I crossed the finishing line in third place in the early hours of the morning, just 20 minutes behind Corentin, the eventual winner, and 10 minutes behing Aloys.

Although a bit disappointed not to beat Vecteur Plus in the leg, it would have made no difference to my overall position out of the two legs, and I was really pleased to take third place in the 2005 Transgascogne out of the 75 starters. It was encouraging to pull back a lot of time over Corentin who had been on his own at the front and so not probably pushed as hard me and Aloys – it just goes to show that your performance in long distance racing stems so much from how good you are at sustaining a high level of self-motivation through the course of a long race. Although it is difficult to judge until I get a few days into the Mini Transat, I think I am good at endurance tasks and staying motivated which I hope can get me a top finish in the Mini Transat. In saying that, there is a lot of hot competition in this year’s Mini Transat with people who have raced in the Vendee Globe, the Figaro, and basically crossed a lot more oceans than I have - my tally is a big round zero!

Now its back the UK for the second and third weeks of August, where I will be based in the Solent getting my Mini properly prepared. I have some new Quantum sails to fit on the boat to replace my extremely tired sails which had raced three seasons now. This should definitely give me a performance boost against by competitors who were all racing with new sails in the Transgascogne. With now only exactly 1.5 months now to the Transat the dream is quickly becoming reality!

Final results:

Pos	Sail no	Boat/skipper	Time
		Proto - solo
1	433	E. LECLERC BOUYGUES TELECOM (DOUGUET Corentin)	2j.08:18:37
2	265	VECTEUR PLUS (CLAQUIN Alois)	2j.09:21:50
3	419	LE GALLAIS (SHARP Philip)	2j.09:57:50
4	276	SYNERGIE TRAVAIL TEMPORAIRE (JOSCHKE Isabelle)	2j.10:57:00
5	491	GL COMPOSITES (MERGUI Mikael)	2j.12:22:22
6	151	SERVOMAP (LE VOURCH Didier)	2j.12:26:11
7	260	REGION NORD PAS DE CALAIS (DUCROT Cyril)	2j.12:26:41
8	198	BROSSARD (HARDY Adrien)	2j.14:30:19
9	312	NIGHT EVER (CASSANAS[B Matthieu)	2j.14:47:26
10	432	IUT DE NIMES (MARCHAND Nicolas)	2j.16:00:05
11	176	SATECH (CURRIER Adam)	2j.16:06:38
12	284	VILLE DE NICE (DELPLACE Yann)	2j.16:27:14
13	392	KHIPLUS (MARIOTTI Ludovic)	2j.18:54:36
14	139	ROXY (BARRIER Alexia)	2j.19:14:34
15	202	SOLOCHALLENGES.COM (WOOD Andrew)	2j.20:38:54
	113	ENGINEERING MESURES (MARSCHAL Nicolas)	NC
	348	BRETAGNE LAPINS (SINEAU David)	NC
	417	CREDIT AGRICOLE (MASLARD Stanislas)	NC
	424	SET ENVIRONNEMENT (DE LAMOTTE Tanguy)	NC
	453	GIN TONIC (VAN DAMME Francois)	NC
		Protos double handed
1	391	APPART CITY (NOBLET Yvan, CASTILLA Manuel)	2j.13:14:03
2	454	AREAS ASSURANCES (LANCRY David, SALABERT Francois)	2j.13:14:14
3	347	CAMELEON (RIOU Yann, VIELLE Caroline)	2j.13:31:42
4	393	THE TOM CREAN (MC CARTHY Cian, OWEN Merfyn)	2j.15:00:52
5	339	ADOC SOLUTIONS (LAINE Pierrick, DALIN Charlie)	2j.18:05:58
6	554	WWW.DIJS;NET (DIJS Alfred)	2j.20:29:13
7	520	TELEKURS TWING (VALENTE Jacques)	2j.21:57:30
8	441	SALZGITTER (BERARD Christophe, CLEMENT Herve)	2j.23:43:37
9	498	LE TREPORT-TRIRARD ET BURGAUD (LE CARROU David)	3j.01:24:51
10	12	IMAGINE (CHEVALLIER Yann, BOUVET Marc)	3j.01:53:24
	75	BELLOTMULLENBACH ET ASSOCIES (FISSEUX Patrice, PRAPLAN Eliane)	NC
		Series singlehanded
1	438	BASECAMP (LAUREYSSENS Peter)	2j.15:09:06
2	487	LPO-LIGUE...... (SANNIE Mathieu)	2j.16:23:53
3	511	BINGO (VIDAL Romain)	2j.16:30:33
4	480	CAP MONDE (AVRAM Olivier)	2j.16:32:55
5	483	CULTISOL MARINS SANS FRONTIERES (MESURE Sebastien)	2j.17:29:53
6	516	UNE PLACE POUR CHACUN (PONTU Sylvain)	2j.17:34:54
7	466	LADY PAULETTE (DE SAQUI DE SANNES David)	2j.19:32:52
8	219	MARIOLE (MONEGIER DU SORBIER Quentin)	2j.22:43:20
9	340	TAQUET MAX (BOURRIE Eric)	2j.23:10:58
10	481	DCF (CHOMBARD DE LAWE Marine)	3j.00:28:41
11	368	PCO TECHNOLOGIE (DESHAYES Ronan)	3j.00:35:51
12	507	KNAUF-VENDEE (LEFEBVRE David)	3j.01:43:07
13	389	TOTEM (BOUDAOUD Arezki)	3j.02:23:07
14	475	MONDIAL ASSISTANCE (BOUILLARD Philippe)	3j.02:28:01
15	318	BLEIZIG (GOYAT Michel)	3j.02:38:20
16	287	FELIBRE GRAINE D'EPAUTRE (BERGMAN Manuel)	3j.02:59:29
17	212	ZOUKATI (LAGRANGE Jean christophe)	3j.10:16:26
	488	PULCO (CROISEL Bruno)	NC
		Series double handed
1	455	PETIT AUGUSTE (DEBLED Antoine)	2j.14:37:17
2	543	NAUTILUS MAGAZINE (LAUTROU Pierre-yves)	2j.14:50:28
3	505	NOIX DE POGO (VAUTRIN Eric)	2j.16:25:00
4	472	MASCO BAY (BARNAUD Delphine)	2j.17:49:36
5	477	FOXAWIN (MALENGREAU Cedric)	2j.18:15:53
6	435	TCHUDA POPKA (CHATEAU Laurence, VALLOT Guillaume)	2j.20:42:59
7	553	MOJO (FRANKLIN Alex, FRANKLIN Peter ian)	3j.00:48:59
8	446	KOATI (LE BORGNE Jean, RAUDE Pierrick)	3j.01:01:33
9	452	ALDENTE (REYNIS Benoit, GUIGNOT Francois)	3j.01:23:37
10	245	FINIST'MER-ECOLE NAVAL (BOT Patrick, CAIRO Marie)	3j.01:29:36
11	550	GODEVIN (VIU Michel, VIU Mathieu)	3j.02:48:12
12	328	POPEYE (BRIERE Christophe, DARGNIES Jean francois)	3j.03:13:30
13	295	PENNEK (GOURDOL Quentin, POIRAT Christophe)	3j.03:34:25
14	47	CELINE;WRIGHT.COM (MORIN Bernard, PELLOQUIN David)	3j.14:20:48
15	207	ANANDA (TOURNIER Claire, LILTI Jean francois)	3j.17:14:10
	517	DINGO CHANTIER MAREE HAUTE (CHATEIGNIER Veronique)	NC
	320	LOP LOP (LOULIER Pierre, DIMANCHIN Jean Marc)	NC
	373	YELLOW SUBMARINE (DU CLEUZIOU Gildas, COSTAGLIOLI Bruno)	NC
	539	CONSTRUCTION MODICOM (LE DIRAISON Stephane)	3j.22:58:53