For the second year in succession the Solitaire du Figaro – Eric Bompard Cachemire – the French test-bed for the Vendée Globe solo round the world race – is coming to a British port and in three days the skippers will start to arrive.
Credit : A Pilpre
Last year the British stopover port was Plymouth. This year Tor Bay is doing the honours with what promises to be an action-packed few days on the English Riviera, before the 39-strong fleet heads off to the finish in Dieppe.
The fact that the organisers of the Figaro have included British stopovers is a testament to the unprecedented level of participation by British skippers in this hugely demanding solo marathon. In the past there have been one or two Brits trying their hand against a predominantly French fleet – among them Clare Francis, Sam Davies, Phil Sharp, Nigel King, James Bird, Andy Greenwood, Conrad Humphreys and Johnny Malbon.
But with the advent of the Cowes-based Artemis Offshore Academy that is dedicated to training young British soloists in the arts of ocean racing, the numbers have increased dramatically. This year there are eight skippers from Britain and all of them would love to be the first into Tor Bay.
The good news is that the British contingent are doing more than enough to justify the recognition they have been given by the organisers. In the first leg from Bordeaux to Sanxenxo in Galicia, rookie Robin Elsey from Truro on Artemis 43 sailed a blinder to be 16th, but more importantly he was the first rookie to finish in a competitive fleet of new-comers.
In the same leg Jack Bouttell on GAC Concise was the best of the more experienced British sailors, getting in 11th. But there were two other Brits in the top-20 – Sam Matson on Chatham in 15th place, and Henry Bomby on Rockfish Red in 18th.
Leg two – a shortened course from La Coruna to Concarneau in Brittany – saw an even stronger British performance with Bomby producing a career-best placing of 4th, crossing the line just 15 minutes behind the winner Sébastien Simon. Bomby’s finish was the highest ranking achieved by a British sailor in the Figaro since Francis won a stage in a much smaller fleet back in 1975.
Behind him there were another five Britons in the top-20 led by Alan Roberts on Magma Structures in a career-best 10th place, with Bouttell 14th and Elsey 17th. This leaves Elsey second overall in the rookie table, just over two minutes behind leader Benoit Mariette on Entrepose.
Now the race is on to get to Tor Bay first. Roberts made a lightening start from Concarneau and was in the top-three during the early stages of another shortened 400-mile leg that looks set to be dominated by light winds. The stage started yesterday with some coastal sailing off Brittany before the fleet heads across the Channel to Wolf Rock off Land’s End and from there to the finish at Tor Bay.
So as the solo grand-prix enters its second half, there are five Brits stacked up in the overall rankings inside the top-20, with Bouttell leading the way in 12th place. The big question is whether any of them can find a way in the next week to secure a top-10 finish overall. Consistent and unflappable, Bouttell (40 minutes off 10th place) is certainly capable of it, as is Matson (17th) who has shown good judgment in lights airs, though he is another hour behind Bouttell in the rankings. For Elsey the challenge is to carry his strong start into the second half of the championship and secure the rookie title.
Bomby was naturally delighted to finally score a top-five finish for the first time on his fourth Figaro. The secret was sailing more conservatively than usual – not for nothing is Bomby known in the Figaro as the “chien fou” (mad dog) – and his consistently good speed downwind in the light airs that predominated across the Biscay.
Speaking on the dockside in Concarneau, Bomby was modest about his achievement. “I don’t really know how I did it, but I just kept taking places the whole time,” he said. “I didn’t really have confidence in the beginning – there were about four or five guys in front of me and the plan was just to stick with them for as long as possible. Then I started to overtake one, then another, and then I just thought ‘Oh, what the hell, I’ll just go for it.’ I just kept trying and then I’d see what happens.”
Bomby was so close to the podium and he knows it is possible for him or one of his fellow countrymen to get there. “When I got into fourth I did think ‘well, can I do the podium?’ But unfortunately it was just too far off and not really possible. But it does leave it open for another Brit to one day make it onto the podium and hopefully it will be in Tor Bay.”
Roberts is competing in the Figaro for a second time. A technically gifted and talented sailor who knows how to be competitive in a one-design fleet, Roberts has never done himself justice in this company. His 10th place on leg two came after he set out with a clear objective to get as much rest as possible during daylight and to work hard during the hours of darkness when in the past he has struggled to maintain his speed with the best sailors in the fleet.
“I slept before the night time came and ate beforehand too,” he said. “I really tried to be ready for it as much as I could be. It all paid off because I was able to actually make a good stab at it all night.”
Elsey, meanwhile, knows he could have been in the top-10 to follow his 16th on leg one, but for an error late on when he was late with a course change. Asked what the biggest challenge of the second leg had been for him, the 22-year-old from Truro replied: “Not being too frustrated about the fact that I lost out a bit. I needed to remind myself a lot that it wasn’t a massive error and that these things happen – I dealt with it eventually and moved on.”
An article by former Times correspondent, Ed Gorman
From Artemis Racing
