Defi Atlantique sets sail

Close inshore racing for the singlehanded Open 60 before heading out to sea

At 1500 GMT (1200hrs local time) on Sunday 30th November 2003, ten Open 60s began the Défi Atlantique transatlantic race in a northerly 17 knot breeze, which gusted over the Bay of All Saints.

In a regatta style start, Virbac (Dick), Wel.Network (Lequin) and AT Racing (Thomson) were lined up perfectly, but just at the gun, VMI (Josse) and PRB (Riou) surged through to leeward in style. All the boats had one reef in their mainsails and Solent up for the first reaching leg to the Liverpool cardinal buoy, except for Virbac flying full mainsail, and places kept changing as the skippers worked hard in the cockpit changing down to staysail and trying to keep boat speed up in the patchy breeze.

It was PRB (Riou) who rounded the first mark in the lead, followed by Virbac (Dick). AT Racing (Thomson) and Team Cowes (Moloney) rounded up to the cardinal mark together, Moloney squeezing through first, and then Thomson powering through to leeward, still flying his Solent as they headed up wind to the next mark. It was a great performance meanwhile from Wel.Network as the young French skipper Benoit Lequin stayed in the front pack and jostled with Ecover (Golding) going round the cardinal. However, Ecover (Golding) began to steal a march on the back of the pack having started conservatively, and after a fouled tack by Moloney, which put Team Cowes into irons, Golding showed a superior sailing angle upwind. The British solo sailing veteran passed four boats on this leg, and then got on the tail of AT Racing just ten boat lengths ahead.

The final inshore mark before the fleet disappeared over the horizon was a ‘gateway’ 150m off Barra Lighthouse. As they sailed past the Salvador skyscrapers, Virbac (Dick) powered past PRB (Riou) and exactly 57 minutes after the start, the Transat Jacques Vabre winner passed through this final gate to the sound of fireworks from the lighthouse with a 45 second advantage.

After PRB, AT Racing (Thomson) passed the Barra Lighthouse 1 minute 42 seconds behind Virbac, and 1 minute 23 seconds ahead of Ecover (Golding). Within just the first hour of racing, the positions all through the fleet kept swapping, and at the gateway, the first to last boats were already separated by over 15 minutes.

Ahead of the ten skippers is 4,100m of open ocean as they race non-stop with no outside assistance or routing to La Rochelle, France. The Défi Atlantique course takes the fleet through the unpredictable Doldrums, up the South and North East Trades rounding the Azores High, and then across to the Western coast of France with the North Atlantic low pressure systems and choppy cross seas of the Bay of Biscay. It should take between 18-20 days to complete the race - rendez-vous in La Rochelle around the 18-20 December for the arrivals…