Sunday, November 12, 2017

Coville and Josse heading for record-breaking photo finish in Salvador de Bahia tomorrow

After 4,350 miles descending the Atlantic from Le Havre to Salvador de Bahia, the 13th edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre could come down to a photo finish between the older warhorse, Sodebo Ultim’, and the young stallion, Maxi Edmond de Rothschild.


Crédit : JL Nelias



The two huge trimarans, both over 30 metres long, are expected to cross the finish line in the Bay of All Saints between 12 and 16:00 UTC tomorrow. Seb Josse, the skipper of Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, was spot on when he predicted an eight-day finish three days before the start.

At 16:00 UTC today Sodebo Ultim’ had a 40-mile lead, but in patchy easterlies off the north-east coast of Brazil was four knots slower than its more powerful pursuer. By the evening with boats getting back towards 30 knots there may be little more than an hour between them.

Whoever wins, the race record will be smashed. The fastest finish to Salvador remains Franck Cammas on Groupama 2’s astonishing 10day 0h 38min win in 2007 in the 60ft multihull class.

For Thomas Coville, the skipper of Sodebo Ultim’ it would a second Transat Jacques Vabre victory to add to his 1999 win on a very different beast – an Imoca 60ft monohull. Coville has concentrated more on solo round-the-world records in trimarans since and broke the record in December. For he and co-skipper Jean-Luc Nélias it is a measure of revenge after another newly-launched maxi, François Gabart’s Macif beat them in 2015.

Maxi Edmond de Rothschild skipper Seb Josse’s best finishing time was his 11days 5 hours 3min win with Charles Caudrelier on the MOD70 trimaran Edmond de Rothschild in the 2013 edition – that time to Itajaí, Brazil.

The dilemma for Coville and Nélias is that they do not know if Josse and Thomas Rouxel’ boat have a technical problem and whether they can control the race against a potentially more powerful rival.

Even with their technical problem they’re going at the same speed as us,” Nélias said. “Control is the whole problem, it’s possible if you’re going at the same speed, with the same boat in the same class, but now we don’t know if can control them or whether they’re going to go faster,

Nélias predicts a complicated light upwind finish after the north-easterly drag race down the coast.

Date : 12/11/17 - 16h06
1 - Sodebo Ultim'
2 - Maxi Edmond de Rothschild
3 - Prince de Bretagne

From TJV