Route du Rhum new boy

Sidney Gavignet on his amazing round Britain record and forthcoming Route du Rhum

The Route du Rhum is lining up to be the top offshore event this autumn, one of the attractions being the ‘Ultimate’ class, a Bruno Peyron-style ‘anything goes’ affair featuring boats such as Franck Cammas’ Groupama 3 maxi-tri, with a cut-down rig, the lengthened ORMA 60, Gitana 11 and the three Irens-Cabaret 100 foot tris Francis Joyon’s IDEC, Thomas Coville’s Sodebo and the new kid on the block Majan Oman Air, with French Volvo Ocean Race veteran Sidney Gavignet at the wheel – monster-sized boats, all sailed singlehanded.

Gavignet is of course best known for his exploits on the Volvo Ocean Race where after competing on board the maxi ketch La Poste with the likes of Eric Tabarly and Michel Desjoyeaux he went on to race with Assa Abloy, winning with Mike Sanderson and ABN AMRO One in 2006-7 and ultimately with Puma.

However while he is one of the few French sailors to have metaphorically crossed the Channel, fully embracing the ‘anglo-saxon’ world of racing, he admits he grew up dreaming of competing in the Vendee Globe. While this may not have come true just yet, he has a similar opportunity in the Route du Rhum from St Malo across the north Atlantic to Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe.

The timing is good because the flavour of this year’s Route du Rhum with the Ultimate class is very similar to when the event was in its heyday, when Gavignet was growing up. “It is fantastic for me. I am supposed to inspire the Omanis and I came back in a race which inspired me as a kid with Eugene Rigiduel and William Saurin, etc. I am coming back in a year when they re-open the limit, so it is perfect.”

The arrangement with Oman Sail came about because Gavignet is in the Offshore Challenges camp, having raced the Transat Jacques Vabre with Sam Davies on board the Artemis Ocean Racing IMOCA 60 last autumn, and learned last year that Oman Sail were thinking of entering their A-100 in the Route du Rhum. Gavignet put his name into the hat to be skipper.

“Perhaps it is surprising for everyone to see me on a multihull and such a big one and singlehanded, but it is not surprising for me,” says Gavignet. “If I look at my abilities and what I think they are, it makes sense.”

While he is best known for competing in the Volvo Ocean Race he has also done two Figaro seasons having taken over Michel Desjoyeaux’s sponsor TBS when the solo offshore legend embarked on his first Vendee Globe campaign 13 years ago. Gavignet competed in the class in 1998, when he was the first rookie in class that featured eventual Solitaire winner Charles Caudrelier, and the followed season before he was lured away to sail around the world on Assa Abloy.

Gavignet recognises it is strange that his career has almost come full circle but in an opposite direction to his French peers. “What I like in the Oman Sail story is that I am back in France in a big event - my dream at the start of sailing was the Vendee Globe, but you need a sponsor, etc and I didn’t get to the Vendee Globe and I went to the Volvo, which I love as well. In fact what is great now is that I am coming back to the French circuit in a major event because of my experience on the Anglo-Saxon circuit. So if I look back at my life – I couldn’t do what I wanted to do because my career went somewhere else but because of that I am back on it.”

The goal of Oman Sail in the Route du Rhum has changed in the intervening months. Originally their participation was in order to promote the A-100 as a one design class, to attract French teams to come to the Middle East to compete. Now with Oman Air coming on board as a sponsor the drive is partly promotion of the country, but also as training for the Oman Sail team.

“For the team, for the people working they have a very clear goal. During the refit of 10/11 days in Lorient, people have never been working so much since they worked with Oman Sail and it is because they have a goal and they are all really committed to it. Even if it is a singlehanded race all the team is embracing it well that race.”

While Gavignet must be considered in the underdog in a class that features Franck Cammas, Francis Joyon and Thomas Coville, singlehanded offshore legends to a man, the new boy showed his credentials recently when he broke Thomas Coville’s singlehanded record for sailing around Britain and Ireland, setting a new time for the 1,787 mile passage of just 4 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes and 47 seconds. Incredibly, this was 1 hour 7 seconds faster than Steve Fossett and the crew of the substantially larger PlayStation managed fully crewed.

“I didn’t even think about the PlayStation record - I was just trying to get the singlehanded record,” admits Gavignet. “In fact Thomas’ record is still in the books because it was on an ORMA 60. Of course, PlayStation’s record is the cherry on the cake. I only figured that out after the finish line. I am lucky I made it otherwise I would have been very unhappy because on the way back I wouldn’t say I took it easy, but I was pacing myself and I could have pushed it a bit more a few times. So I am happy I made it.”

Gavignet pays tribute to the Oman Sail team for, as he reminds us, it was only two and a half months ago that the boat was still in Oman and since then she has been through a refit.

“With a record you need to have luck and I had plenty of luck because the conditions arrived just when we needed it,” he says. With records becoming harder and harder to better Gavignet was indeed fortunate that the right weather window opened up in the short period he had available. He says there was about three days leeway otherwise they would have had to start looking in September and then it was unlikely to have happened. In fact had the routing not shown them to be in with a chance of breaking the record then they would never have risked the boat on a course that in terms of its navigational hazards is potentially much more dangerous than the Route du Rhum.

As it was Gavignet had a small ‘incident’ that he can recount with humour, in retrospect...when he ran on to one of the notorious sandbanks on the north side of the Thames estuary while doing 20 knots under genniker and reefed main. At the time he was trying to cut a corner and aware that there might be a depth issue had raised the daggerboard so that in the event the kick-up rudder would hit first. He says that the pilot at the time was steering to true wind angle rather than compass course which might have been a mistake. In the event 20cm of both the rudder and the daggerboard buried and there was a nerve wracking 20 seconds before he was able to get clear. “There was another bank behind us which birds were walking on and then there was a wind turbine field, etc” he recounts with a shudder.

The record of course was a great test for Gavignet personally. He says that in terms of the routing they had downgraded the polars to 85% of the boat’s full potential and he was pleased that he had exceeded that, however he says that this may have been because they had more wind than the GRIB files showed, but also due to his new carbon 3DL sails, tailored for him by North Sails France. “The carbon is so much more powerful compared to Cuben. I was really surprised by that. That is a clear bonus on the boat.”

It may also be down to the 500kg they have shed from the boat during her refit.

Looking ahead to the Route du RHum, Gavignet is playing down his chances. He says that in the Ultimate class there are five big boats – Groupama 3, IDEC, Sodebo, Gitana 11 and his. The one without foils is his and he reckons this is significant. “Because I don’t have the foils, it is 4 knots... I know that Sodebo use their foils at 20 knots or maybe a bit less. So until we reach 20 knots we should be even.”

But Gavignet’s favourite for the race is Francis Joyon, because he is a ‘phenomenon’, although he says Coville is well prepared. Groupama is just a very very big boat for one person to handle, but while he should show his speed when it is straight line sailing. Meanwhile Yvan Guichard and Gitana 11, Gavignet reckons will have the edge in sub-15 knot conditions. “Yann was saying it was like being on a motorbike compared to being in 4x4,” he says of the comparison between the Gitana elongated ORMA 60 and the Irens/Cabaret 100ft tris.

“With our boats, they are big, but they are fine. I think it will be easier for us to get to the maximum potential of our boats – they are more comfortable, less stress. These boats are incredibly seaworthy. I have never sailed on such a seaworthy boat. We had 70 knots in the Indian Ocean from Cape Town to Perth. It is almost too comfortable for racing but I guess the former ORMA 60s, they were too powerful and a bit too crazy to sail singlehandled.”

As to the differences between the three Irens-Cabaret designs, Majan Oman Air is an exact sistership of Sodebo and came from the same moulds. In comparison IDEC is marginally smaller, narrower and has a shorter mast. IDEC is also certainly lighter as she lacks the third half beam for her main sheet track, instead mounting this on the aft main crossbeam. It is possible IDEC therefore has a higher power to weight ratio.

Sodebo and Gitana 11 both have canting masts. IDEC also has lifting foils in her floats, but on Sodebo they have substantially more cord to them. Majan Oman Air’s rig is the same height as Sodebo’s but has a little less cord and was built by Southern Spars using a more robust monolithic rather than a sandwich carbon fibre construction.

Gavignet says he is hoping to make up for the lack of foils by what he sees as his advantage in the sail wardrobe. “For me there is no chance to beat them in normal conditions, but historically the Route du Rhum can be very dramatic so we never know. The other thing as well is that Joyon and Coville have done so many miles on their boats that even if I had the foils then still on paper I shouldn’t beat them.”

Following his two seasons in the Figaro, Gavignet says that this experience is still fresh with him and while the Route du Rhum may be transatlantic, compared to the round the world record it is a relative sprint. “What will be key will be the two first days because it takes two days to get into the offshore mode and also because we will be coming out of 10 days of non-sailing in St Malo with media people and so on which will have a special atmosphere. Very often it is those first two days that already create positions. So if I could stay with the boats or be in front of one of those four other boats it would be great and then we’ll see what the scenario brings.”

To date Gavignet has sailed his boat extensively with Paul Standbridge and his crew and on the delivery from Oman to Lorient carried out his Route du Rhum qualifier before the boat went into refit. He has since done the Round Britain record and says he has three more training sessions planned before the start of the Route du Rhum on 31 October. He may also try to make an attempt on the singlehanded Cowes-Dinard record if suitable weather presents itself.

“I am amazed everything is going so well,” says Gavignet. “When everything goes well the only thing that can happen is that it can go a little less well. So I am cautious. But I am really enjoying it.”