Transat
Jacques Vabre - Multihulls To Start On Wednesday
Morning At 1000hrs French Time
Following
a briefing with all the skippers from the multihull
fleet, the ORMA Open 60 trimaran start will be
at 1000hrs French time from Le Havre on Wednesday
morning. The weather forecast looks to be considerably
better with moderate winds of 15 – 20 knots
from South West – South, and wave heights
only at 2 metres.
As
for the monohull race, more breaking news is reaching
the race office about Loire-Atlantique's ripped
main and pit stop in Cherbourg, TIR Groupe's detour
to Dartmouth, plus updates on Atlantic Nature
and Ciments St Laurent...
A
briefing is scheduled for Tuesday at 1700hrs French
time for a final weather check before the 14 trimarans
leave through the Paul Vatine basin from 0730hrs
French time on Wednesday morning. This restart
means that the route now is direct to Salvador,
and the boats will not have to pass the Ascension
Islands as a mark of the course. So the Multihulls
now have the same mileage and course as the monohulls,
that is 4340 miles.
Anne
Caseneuve &hristophe Houdet on their 50ft
trimaran Atlantique Nature dismasted at 0500hrs
this morning North of Guernsey, but are now 27
miles from land making headway towards Cherbourg,
where they should dock at the end of today. At
Cherbourg they will no doubt meet Georges Leblanc
and Marc Nadeau, who were airlifted to safety
by a helicopter this morning, but now also the
two French skippers Antoine Koch and François
Robert, who have just arrived there too at 1405hrs
French time in order to make a pit stop to change
the mainsail.
The
Open 60 monohull Loire Atlantique skippered by
Koch and Robert suffered a ripped mainsail and
all the battens had broken and so they hope to
change the mainsail rapidly in order to rejoin
the race as soon as possible.
Lastly,
the father and son duo, Mike and Robert Birch
on Open 60 TIR Groupe informed the Race Office
that their mast track has broken and so they are
heading at 7 knots boatspeed towards Dartmouth
under storm sail alone.
For TJV race information go to http://www.jacques-vabre.com
