Culinary treats set to sweeten 'most difficult challenge' ever

The Oman Air MOD70 during La Route des Princes © Lloyd Images

Oman Air-Musandam skippers Sidney Gavignet and Damian Foxall fully expect the 2013 Transat Jacques Vabre to be the most difficult challenge of their careers.

Racing a powerful 70-foot Multi One Design trimaran two-handed across an ocean generally regarded as one of the most complicated of any, all adds up to a monumental test for the French-Irish sailing duo.

"Technically, this will be the most difficult race we have ever done," said Foxall who has around 350,000 racing miles – including 20 transatlantics - in his professional logbook.

"In a monohull, if you go beyond, the boat heels over, you slow down, the sails flap and it comes up again. On these boats, if you go beyond it is all over.

"We have seen twice this year how easy it is to capsize these boats so in terms of a physical and mental challenge, this will be the hardest."

An important part of the Oman Air-Musandam preparations was working out how Gavignet and Foxall complement each other. They discovered they both had a tendency to push the boat at all times and have worked hard during their training sessions to moderate this – conserving energy will be just as crucial.

"We know how tricky sailing these boats can be – we will ensure we don't push ourselves too much," said Gavignet, one of the most experienced offshore sailors in the world with around 25 transatlantics in his long and distinguished career.

For Gavignet and Foxall, preparations for the 5,400nms race from Le Havre to Itajai in Brazil are just about complete with the delivery from Lorient to Le Havre, a final emergency medical briefing and the all important provisioning of the boat still to do.

Neither are fans of freeze-dried food so they will be attempting to store away some 'fun' food, as Gavignet describes it, to add enjoyment to their daily routine.

For the Frenchman, his luxury will be chestnut puree, though he needn't worry about Foxall dipping into his supplies.

"I hope he's not packing too big a jar because he'll be eating it all on his own," Foxall joked.

"For me, the luxury will be bars of liquorice and maybe a few jars of Nutella, which I will supplement in the early days with a few freshly-made crepes washed down with hot chocolate!" For the first time, weather routing is being permitted on the TJV for the two MOD70 crews which means the three hour watches, with a 50 minute crossover each time, will be spent mainly on deck rather than down below at the chart table.

"We could get two good hours of sleep at one time if we are lucky but the great thing about weather routing is we will be able to keep track of the boats ahead and have a pretty good idea of what weather is to come," said Gavignet.

"There will be a team of up to three people for each boat doing the weather routing – drawing down all the data and analysing weather and the various route options, changing the percentage performance of the boat to get an idea of how stable a route is and the quality of the wind over the following six to 12 hours. This will all be presented to us succinctly so we can digest it easily and make our decisions.

"It will be a very important part of the race," he said.

A team of eight will be on board Oman Air-Musandam for the delivery to Le Havre, a trip that is likely to take around 18 hours starting on Thursday. Among them is Omani sailing star and regular Oman Air-Musandam crewmember Fahad Al Hasni who has arrived in Lorient direct from Muscat to help with the last minute preparations.

"We are very happy to have Fahad with us," Gavignet said.

"He is preparing the gennakers and will be doing the delivery with us so it will be a bit like the Route des Princes last summer.

"He won't have ever seen anything like a TJV start before – hundreds of thousands of spectators waving the fleet off so hopefully it will be an experience he can take back to Oman and tell his friends, family and young fans about. It will be an amazing experience for him."

Oman Air-Musandam will leave Le Havre with the rest of the TJV fleet on 3 November to race a 40 nm prologue before restarting on the 8 November in the last of the staggered starts which have been planned so that the four classes arrive in Itajaí in close order.

More information at www.omansail.com and www.gomusandam.com and www.transat-jacques-vabre.com/en