Pro Sailing Tour, Season 1, Episode 2: La Rochelle, lucky charm for the Leyton crew, leader of the overall ranking tonight

Leaders of the Pro Sailing Tour last Sunday after the first episode in Brest, an extremely motivated Leyton crew arrived in La Rochelle earlier this week. Determined not to let their competitors get ahead, Sam Goodchild, Laurane Mettraux, Thomas Coville, Aymeric Chappellier and François Morvan have won five of the nine races, thus keeping their overall leading position.

Photo credit: Anne Beaugé / Leyton Sailing Team

Thursday afternoon in La Rochelle, the 2^nd Episode of the Pro Sailing Tour began with a 12-hour offshore race. “The conditions were quite light at the start then it turned into a speed race where we had to optimize the boat for long straight lines. It was an interesting race for us to compare ourselves with the rest of the fleet to judge the speed of our boat.” explained Sam upon arriving. Leyton finished 2^nd.

On Saturday, the wind was quite shy on the waters of La Rochelle. Early afternoon, the Ocean Fifty were finally able to set sail and realize 4 races, two of which won by Leyton. “It was more challenging than Brest, we weren’t as fast as last weekend.” said Sam yesterday on the docks. “But on the tactical side of things, François did a great job and the fact that Aymeric new the racing area helped a lot. It was real team work with Laurane and Thomas as well ! »

So was it the maneuvers practiced over and over again, the good communication between the team members, the local knowledge of Aymeric Chappelier? It was probably a mix of everything as the orange and blue boat did it again on Sunday and won 3 of the 4 races.

In total, over this 2^nd Episode in La Rochelle, the Leyton team collects five victories, four second places, and 71 points of the 77 possible. Very good results of which the skipper is not fully satisfied: “We can do better, we’re missing 6 points to be on top!” said Sam ironically tonight on the docks.

Relive La Rochelle Episode in videos

Leyton Crew

Sam Goodchild, skipper and helmsman
Aymeric Chappellier, navigator
Thomas Coville, trimmer
Laurane Mettraux, number 1 / trimmer
François Morvan, tactician

DECLARATIONS AFTER EPISODE 2

Sam Goodchild, skipper de Leyton
“It’s great to win this 2^nd Episode in La Rochelle. We’re all extremely happy! I don’t know if the results really reflect the conditions we had on the water. It may seem easy but it’s not the case! We were always fighting hard. On the coastal race this morning, we had to battle hard to win. The waters of La Rochelle are really nice even though the wind was unstable today. We’ve managed to make the most of it which is great.
Now we’re going to debrief theses first two episodes before the 3^rd one in Las Palmas. We can still improve our starts and also increase our level as we can tell the other teams are starting to catch up. We’re going to do everything to stay ahead. The crew is going to change as well because Laurane’s big sister, Elodie-Jane Mettraux will join us. With Leyton we really wanted to have women as part of the crew. They aren’t too many women on the multihull circuit and it was important to give them this opportunity. It doesn’t change anything onboard, we’re just 5 people who really want to win.”

Aymeric Chappellier, navigator
 “As I am from La Rochelle, I have tried to share with the crew my knowledge of the local waters. But as it usually happens when you’re sailing at home, we didn’t have the usual conditions this weekend! Today we had some eastern winds all day when usually there is a thermal breeze. We still made the right choices and we leave with good results!”