Francesca Clapcic: Route du Rhum, Day 8 Report
Francesca has had another fast and furious night on board 11th Hour Racing, hitting a maximum speed of of 23.9 knots [27.5mph | 44.3kmh] and covering 300 nautical miles [345 miles | 556km] over the last 24 hours.
“The sea state is quite steep, so we get a lot of jumps off the waves, which makes life onboard quite uncomfortable,” she said in a voice note early this morning, with the wind whistling loudly in the rigging and the waves hitting the boat clearly audible. “I’m trying not to move around too much, as it's not super safe,” she added. “I’m fairly tired, to be honest. I'm pretty fried.”
Nevertheless, Francesca is still holding fifth place, although the fleet positions, both ahead of her and behind, shuffled overnight. Pre-race favourite Sam Goodchild (Macif Santé Prevoyance) has slipped down from second place to fourth, and is now only 90 nautical miles [104 miles | 167km] ahead of Francesca.
Meanwhile Sébastian Simon (Groupe Dubreuil – Air Caraïbes), sailing one of only two newly launched IMOCAs in this edition of the race, has overtaken Maxime Sorel (Vaincre la Mucoviscidose) to climb into sixth, 75 nautical miles [86 miles | 139km] behind Francesca.
However, Francesca singles out Elodie Bonafous (Association Petits Princes-Queguiner) as putting in the most impressive performance in the fleet overnight, with “really high speed, consistent sailing.
“I'm very happy that she's in a podium position near really good sailors,” Francesca added “It's showing that women can really fight for the first spot in this race. I'm really, really pleased with that.”
11th Hour Racing is now only 750 nautical miles [863 miles | 1,389km] from the finish at Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe, but over the next 8-10 hours the wind will moderate and swing aft. It will then drop even further to a near calm with less than five knots [6mph | 9kmph] of breeze.
Unfortunately, the bowsprit that broke on the fifth night at sea, when Francesca was lying in third place, will start to have a bigger impact on performance as the wind strength reduces. “The race will change as the wind drops. It's quite expected, so nothing new about it,” she says, “but of course, it will be a bit of a struggle for me to be able to keep sailing fast without bigger sails.
“I might try to find a solution, but it has to be really, really light weather and not much sea state, before I can work on deck. But maybe I’ll be able to put a bigger sail up for the finish.”
Other than the bowsprit she says the boat is in good shape, despite the ravages of the last couple of days. “I do my checks every day on all the systems and, of course, I've found a few little breakages here and there, but nothing major. It gives a lot of confidence for the future.”
How does it feel to be closing the finish of her first solo trans-Atlantic race? “I just activated a waypoint on the north side of Guadeloupe,” she says. “It’s 680 miles from here and it feels good – it's not that far away.
“I will really try to enjoy the last few days, I know I've been quite frustrated the last couple of days, but a lot of people had to quit and even if we had issues, we're still in the race. I just want to enjoy the fact that the Route du Rhum is a pretty big deal, and it deserves a bit of pleasure.”
Huge congratulations from Francesca also go to the first finishers in the giant 32m [105ft] Ultim trimarans. Tom Laperche (SVR-Lazartigue) completed the 3,542 mile course in just 6 days 13 hours, 27 minutes, slicing an impressive six hours off the race record. Thomas Coville (SOBEDO Ultim 3) took second place in this class, while Louis Burton (Ultim Armand Thiery) completed the podium.
