The Vintage classes in the Route du Rhum are finally getting a break from the weather, even as the fleet's oldest sailors count the cost of a brutal few days at sea.
The Ultims and Ocean Fifty boats are already in. The IMOCAs are bunching up around Guadeloupe. That leaves the Class 40s, Vintage Multi and Vintage Mono fleets still out there, and it was the veterans of the pack who had the stories to tell at this morning's check-in.
In Vintage Multi, Damien Seguin (Arkea - Handicap International) and Éric Peron (Oceania Hotels) are due into Pointe-à-Pitre within 24 hours. Further back, a proper scrap is underway between François Guiffant (We Explore) and Marc Guillemot (MG5 Wellness Training). "We're following pretty similar routes," Marc said this morning. "François is an excellent reference point. He sails his boat really well, and from the start we've kept finding ourselves near each other, without ever planning it. It's quite funny, because we'd never raced against one another before." The pair were around thirty miles apart laterally this morning. "It's up to me to hold my position and, if possible, pick up a few miles," Guiffant said. "On paper his boat is normally faster than mine."
Both men are sailing smart rather than flat out. Guillemot, on his seventh Route du Rhum, admitted that "twenty years younger, I might have broken this boat pushing too hard. You have to learn to look after it and let sea conditions dictate your speed." Guiffant, meanwhile, is sailing a flax-built boat lent to him by Bilou (Roland Jourdain), and treats the whole race as a gift. "Even in the tough moments, I tell myself I've got nothing to complain about," he said. "We're living exceptional moments of contemplation out here too. Eleven days cut off from the news and the world. It frees the mind."
Charlie Capelle (Acapella - Proludic - La Chaîne de l'Espoir) and Laurent Eithemer (Fifty Fifty) were still in port this morning, waiting out the storm. "It cleared up well overnight and the low has moved through. It's still blowing hard in the harbour and the sea's choppy outside, but I reckon I'll head out once the swell settles, tomorrow morning at the latest."
In Vintage Mono, skippers emerged battered but relieved after successive fronts. Christophe Bachmann (Grain de Sable) didn't hold back. "In the big depression I really got taken apart. I was scared like never before, gusts to 70 knots, eight to ten metre seas. At one point I thought there was nothing left to do but let the boat run." Forty-eight hours without sleep and a damaged winch later, his boat is holding together, and he's locked in a tactical battle with Jean Le Cam (Alegria - Gustave Roussy) and Titouan Pilliard (Use it Again for Youth).
Gilles Colubi (SNSM Guilvinec), sailing the smallest boat in his class, had a similarly rough time of it. "The second front was tough. My boat only weighs five tonnes, so with the sea we had I got knocked about quite a bit." A dead engine and a broken mainsail block forced him into the toolbox. Still, he says, "we're heading in the right direction."
Last to check in was Frédéric Mailhos (FEVE - Votre épargne finance des fermes bio), who'd just been hit by a squall. "The wind went from fifteen to thirty knots in four minutes. I had to go out on deck and got well and truly soaked." The wind dropped away just as fast, letting him settle back into a rhythm. "It's not a battle every second any more. I can adjust my sail combinations without drama and sail much more calmly. The trade winds should eventually fill in, though quite gently."
