Goodchild still 10th overall, but others flounder

The fortunes of the five Brits and one Irish on leg three of La Solitaire du Figaro

With an 8th place into Porto, 11th into Gijon and tonight a 14th into Roscoff, Sam Goodchild, skipper of Shelterbox-Disaster Relief remains the stand-out performer among the five British skippers and one Irish in this year’s La Solitaire du Figaro.

Touch wood, the 23-year-old remains on track to better the top British result in the event’s recent history – Phil Sharp’s 18th place in 2011. After leg three he is lying 10th overall, 1h 40m 13s behind the new overall race leader, Fred Duthil’s Sepalumic. Ironically although he has lost a place he is now half an hour closer to the race leader than he was after leg 2.

Despite arriving at 01:30 in the morning, the crowds in Roscoff’s Port de Plaisance were still out in force to welcome Goodchild in. “It is incredible,” he said. “There are people everywhere, clapping and blowing loud horns to make sure everyone wakes up! And I am English and 14th and they are still clapping me in!”

As to his overall result Goodchild was pleased still to be on track. “I am fairly happy as long as I am in somewhere in the top 15.”

The first part of the leg from Gijon across the Bay of Biscay to Ile d’Yeu went well for him. “Arriving in 10th was quite cool and swapping places with Jeremie Beyou three times coming in – that probably upset him more than it upset me!” However Goodchild added that he was disappointed to have boat speed issues. “I don’t really know why. I just couldn’t go the same speed as many other people, so I lost a few places coming in, but I am still pretty happy with 14th to be honest. That’s nothing to complain about.”

Goodchild looked a little bit fried upon his arrival but was otherwise elated. “I slept alright. I got a few cheeky sleeps on the way in which I probably shouldn’t have done because we were so close to the finish. We got a lot less sleep this time than on the first two legs.

“Sleeping was really difficult. In 25-30 knots and the wave were horrible and the boat would hardly steer itself and I wasn’t really happy with the speed the boat was going, so I wasn’t going to sleep then. And the Biscay was drifting around for the first half and then reaching with spinnaker for the second half and unless you are VMG running with the spinnaker, there is no way you can sleep with the spinnaker up. So there wasn’t the opportunity. Then VMG coming into Ile de Batz it was fine to sleep, but it was a bit late by then!”

The toughest part came after the boats rounded Ile d’Yeu on Friday night. As Goodchild put it – the sun went down with a peaceful 10 knots, there was 5 knot in the lee of the island and they came out the other side into 25-30 ahead of a front that passé them 3-4 hours later. Goodchild reckoned he hadn’t negotiated the front that well. “I played that wrong – it was turning right so I went hard right, but I think quite a few people went through it without ever tacking – they got headed, but came back up with it. Whereas I went low into it with the aim of tacking across people but it didn’t go right as far as I thought it would. Still, you live and learn.”

Somewhat punch drunk, Nick Cherry arrived on Magma Structures in 27th place, finishing at 03:32:37 French time. “I found this leg pretty hard,” said the former UK Match Racing Nation Champion. “I didn’t have the weather situation clear in my head, so I was making decisions and going back on them, zigzagging across behind the fleet on the first leg and then I was a bit slow on the beat up here.”

However Cherry relished putting his match racing skills to good use as he engaged with Jean-Pierre Nicol (Bernard Controls) and Artemis Offshore Academy scholarship winner Jack Bouttell on Artemis 77 coming in to the finish line.

Conversely Jack Bouttell seemed as bright as a button when he pulled into Roscoff’s Port de Plaisance. He was only told on his arrival that the main threat to his lead in the rookie class, Claire Pruvot’s Port de Caen Ouistreham, had suffered a broken spreader. For a third consecutive time Bouttell has won the rookie prize for a leg (along with a cheque...) and he is now the clear leader in this division. If he can hold this position over the final leg, then it will be the first time a Brit has ever achieved a rookie class win.

“It was quite a lot different to what the forecast said,” said Bouttell of his race. “It was meant to be a complete drifter, but it was quite windy the whole way around. I was a bit slow on the first night which didn’t help for the rest of the race really, but I kept plodding away. There were no shut-downs, whereas the two legs before were at some point a complete drift-off, so it was quite a nice change from that. It was all just straight line. The only tactical thing was the beat after Ile d’Yeu, up past Belle Ile where there was a big split in the fleet. Apart from that it was all pretty straight forward.”

Rockfish skipper Henry Bomby arrived in 31st place at 03:48:56 local time. He felt he hadn’t made the best job of the Bay of Biscay crossing. “There wasn’t the big high pressure that we thought we might get stuck in and have to go around. In fact you could go straight through the middle of it if you wanted which is what some people did, only I didn’t. So I was 12 miles behind the leaders by Ile d’Yeu which was pretty painful. So that hurt, my strategy didn’t pay off. I should have bailed a bit earlier along with Yann [Elies] and Armel [le Cleac’h] who got wise to it quicker than I did. But you live and learn.”

As to his sleep, Bomby said he managed some on the first night, but less on the second when they were upwind in conditions that were rough enough to force them to have to steer. In fact the sea was so lumpy that it caused a window on Rockfish to spring a leak. “Then with these late/really early finishes you don’t sleep because you have the approach into land and lots going, but I anticipated that and got some sleep this afternoon.” Bomby reckons that he probably slept in total for four or five hours this leg.

He near came acropper exiting the lee of Ile d’Yeu when the wind was rapidly building into the 20s and he was attempting to change from genoa to Solent. “I got on it quickly before it got to 28-29 when it becomes very hard to make a change.”

Conversely Ed Hill on Artemis 37 felt the part to Ile d’Yeu had gone comparatively well for him. “I had a not great start, but got back into it and overtook all the other rookies and was looking pretty good up to Ile d’Yeu. Then I made a bad headsail change, lost a few places there and let Jack get back in front of me, which was disappointing.”

Like Goodchild, Hill felt he lacked pace at times, but his biggest hurdle was the failure of his autopilot. Figaros typically carry a smaller, lightweight spare, but this proved not to be man enough for the task.

“I spent the last 150 miles basically having to hand steer,” recounted Hill. “It was entertaining in gybes without a pilot. I am pretty knackered. Since the pilot failed I haven’t had any sleep at all. Just running downstairs to check the nav is difficult enough with the boat spearing out. I had some weed on the rudder by the Chenal de Four and when I tried to get it off, the boat broached out and I was trapped to leeward with the boat careering off towards the rocks... It has been tough to do anything apart from steering.”

The youngest competitor, Ireland’s David Kenefick on Full Irish arrived in torrential rain at 05:45:23 French time to take 36th place.

“I got off to a good start: I tacked to clear my air as you do on a normal inshore race, but unfortunately I ended up on the wrong side of the fleet and I stupidly split from it which I have done too many times,” Kenefick admitted upon his arrival. “And the routing that we did beforehand didn’t come into play: It was all the right hand side and I found myself on the right hand side which should have been favoured but that wasn’t the case. After that it was pretty hard to catch up – there were no lanes.”

Kenefick’s race nearly came to an end on the first morning of this leg when his leeward D2 diagonal rigging on his mast came unwound. This required him to go aloft, only that he had no climbing gear. He put on a lifejacket and fashioned a make-shift arrangement using a spinnaker halyard on a loop, hauled himself up the rig before shimmying across to the leeward end of the spreader to sort out the piece of rigging.

Having arrived in Roscoff ahead of schedule will allow the skippers some added time to catch up on their sleep. Little is expected to occur today, Sunday, now they have arrived.

Leg 3 results:

Overall results (cumulative elapsed times)