The Brasilian Slalom

With 1100 nautical miles to make to the Transat Jacques Vabre finish line off Fort de France, Martinique, the tough gybing routine in the strong 20-25 knots tradewinds has allowed only snatched periods of rest for the Leyton OceanFifty duo Sam Goodchild and Aymeric Chapellier these last 24 hours.
Racing along the race’s imposed exclusion zone 300 miles off the NE corner of Brasil, Goodchild and Chappellier have been working hard to keep the Leyton OceanFifty fast all the time, whilst catching rest between the gybes which have been required every hour to keep them on the best wind angles. The frequency of these gybes should reduce later today.

Sam Goodchild, boosted by all the birthday wishes yesterday commented last night:

” Gybing down the exclusion zone we have been a bit busy, like with an hour between each gybe we were trying to catch up on rest as much as we can so we only have been getting 45 minutes each maximum rest each. It is going fairly well, we are fairly happy. We have been struggling a little bit for speed compared to Koesio which is kind of forcing us to keep trying new things and we are discovering new things, little by little. We are obviously trying to win but a good thing about this Transat race is learning how to go faster with the boat, rarely would you get two weeks hard sailing with the boat in a performance like this. Now it is very hot down below, it is hard to sleep below, it is a bit sweaty and on deck it is wet with all the waves and so living is a little more difficult. At night we cool down a bit. But apart from that it is 20-25 knots surfing downwind in warm weather in big waves for 700 miles, so a lot of sailors in the world would not say no to this, I am very lucky, I am not going to complain. But we are certainly looking for a rest when this gybing routine slows down.“

Race update – DAY 13 – Transat Jacques Vabre

Track the race live HERE