19:00 Sunday 27 July 2025
IMOCAs neck and neck to the Rock
It remains very close in the IMOCA fleet this afternoon, halfway into their light wind outbound Celtic Sea crossing to the Fastnet Rock where they are due tonight. Currently they are negotiating a weak zone of high pressure which is causing the leaders to make no more than a pedestrian 10 knots.
Still Elodie Bonafous' Association Petits Princes-Queguiner leads, but only by one mile from Jérémie Beyou's Charal with Sam Davies on Initiatives Coeur third. This afternoon all three were heading due west on starboard tack.
Jérémie Beyou's Charal is only a mile off the leading IMOCA, Association Petits Princes-Queguiner © James Tomlinson/RORC
After her Vendée Globe experiences, Sam was enjoying racing on board with a ‘full’ crew, an experience not dissimilar to when she skippered the all-women’s Team SCA in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race. “We can sleep because we're sailing with a full crew – a complete luxury! And we’ve got a team that know the boat really well, so even for tacks you don't have to get up. We’ve got a four-way watch system, so there's no skipper or navigator – everyone does everything and it means everyone's pretty good at everything. For small manoeuvres we do it doublehanded with the two people who are on watch, so it means we actually get some good rest and hopefully we have enough brain cells left to make the good decisions.”
While the race so far has been fairly light, there has still been enough breeze for Initiatives Coeur to get up on her foils and at times yesterday she was averaging 20 knots. However this was not without its issues: “We were doing some good wheelies because when you're halfway between foiling and not foiling, you have everything max rake, and when the breeze builds up a little bit, you just take off because we can't adjust the rake very well when the boat's going fast. So there were some spectacular flying moments…”
Sam Davies' IMOCA Initiatives Coeur has had a good first 24 hours, keeping up with Charal and class leader Association Petits Princes-Queguiner © Rick Tomlinson/RORC
Generally the boat is holding up well, although Sam says there was one drama: “I broke my bunk yesterday. We're happy that the weather's been calm, allowing me to carry out a makeshift repair with lashings and duct tape! In fact I didn't completely fall down, although one of the bars of the frame snapped off. It was one of those nasty shocks where you just drop suddenly 10cm and you wonder if you're going to go the rest of the way or not!”
In addition to the other IMOCAs nearby, Sam says she has been enjoying seeing the plethora of other fast monohulls near them. “We have seen Leopard 3 and Tschüss 2 and Pyewacket70. When it's light and we're not foiling, then they head off and then when we foil, we just hoon back up to them and overtake. We don't really do the same angles, so there's absolutely no way of comparing boats, but it's nice to have other boats around. It's kind of cool to see, having only done IMOCA races for so long."
Earlier it was grey out on the Celtic Sea although apparently the on-watch on Initiatives Coeur got to enjoy a nice sunset off Start Point yesterday. “Now there's a kind of mini low pressure, which has taken the wind away from us temporarily. So there's <10 knots of wind and a bit of a swell now – but we know we're out in the open ocean! Passing close to the Scillies was beautiful at sunrise. So we’ve had a nice bit of scenery go by.”
Once out of this little system, Sam was expecting the sun to come out again and conditions to cheer up. “We're really enjoying it. It's great to be here and it's cool because it is a first for half of our crew who hadn’t ever been in the Solent before and were completely overwhelmed it – all the boats and the atmosphere.”
At 17:00 BST the lead IMOCAs were still upwind, but with around 90 miles to go to the Fastnet Rock.
IMOCA and Class40 joint start from Cowes © Paul Wyeth/www.pwpictures.com
Tight competition for Class40s
Right from the outset competition has been typically tight at the front of the 24-strong Class40 fleet. More than 20 per cent of the fleet has a two-hour time penalty for starting prematurely, which will shuffle the final standings once the fleet arrives at the finish.
In the meantime, after almost 24 hours of racing the top two teams were almost neck and neck on the water – and the top 15 separated by only 10 miles – as they headed up the gap between the Scilly Islands and the TSS off Land’s End early this afternoon.
Hugo Picard and Pietro Luciani are racing the Italian-designed and built Les Invincibles © James Tomlinson/RORC
Alex Trehin and Douguet Corentin on Faites un don sur SNSM.org, a Lombard Lift 3 scow bow design, have pulled out a narrow lead ahead of Hugo Picard and Pietro Luciani racing Les Invincibles, an Italian-designed and built Muso 40.
At the time of writing Thomas Jourdren was in third place on NST Racing & Cabinet Z, a Mach 5 design by Sam Manuard, and only 0.8 miles behind Les Invincibles. “It has been very important to be attentive to sail trim and keep the boat moving fast,” he says. “We didn't hesitate to take a slightly lower course on the long tack to the west – that strategy paid off.”
At the moment they are sailing upwind in a “very unstable 8 to 12 knots of wind. It’s not easy,” Jourdren adds, “but it's the same for everyone. For the moment, we're sailing our race without any pressure. We know there's still a long way to go, but we're in the leading pack, so it's up to us to sail cleanly and make our mark. In any case, we're giving it our all to keep our friends behind us.”
At this stage Pamela Lee’s #Emphower is only 10 miles behind the leaders, yet in 15th place. “It’s directly upwind to the Fastnet from here,” says navigator Pierre Le Roy, “so we need to position our tacks at exactly the right moments – that’s the main question for me over the next 24 hours, so I will be staying close to the computer. After that hopefully we will have some nice downwind sailing to Cherbourg.”
Unfortunately Fabian Delahaye’s Legallis, one of the pre-race favourites and leader of the 2025 Class40 series to date, failed to make the start line yesterday, having hit a navigation buoy in the western Solent close to the end of the delivery voyage to Cowes from Cherbourg-en-Contentin. Hull damage close to the transom forced Delahaye to withdraw from the race, although Legallis was able to return to the French port without assistance.
Class40 start in Cowes © James Tomlinson/RORC
