Hugo Boss takes second in the Transat Jacques Vabre
by Transat Jacques Vabre media 19 Nov 2011 06:48 GMT
19 November 2011
Britain's Alex Thomson and Spain's Guilermo Altadil take second across the finish in the 2011 Transat Jacques Vabre
Alex Thomson (GBR) and Guillermo Altadill (ESP) sailed Hugo Boss across the finish line off Puerto Limon, Costa Rica this Friday evening at 23hrs 20 mins 0 secs UTC, 17hrs 20 mins 00secs local time, to finish the tenth edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre double handed Transatlantic race in second place in the IMOCA Open 60 Class.
Hugo Boss completed the 4730 miles theoretical course distance in 16 days 9 hours 20 minutes 0 sec at an average speed of 12,03kts. They finished 15 hrs 4 mins 6 secs after Jean Pierre Dick and Jérémie Beyou on Virbac Paprec 3 who crossed first this morning.
Second place in this biennial classic ocean race which started from Le Havre on Wednesday November 2nd at 1302hrs is a significant return to form for Thomson who has long held a reputation for being one of the fastest skippers in the IMOCA Open 60 class, but who has suffered with a succession of boat failures and disappointments in recent years. In the last edition of the race, 2009, he had to retire after suffering hull damage early in the race, north of the Azores.
Thomson went back to basics for this race, taking an older Farr designed boat, rather than his more powerful, heavier design which he had built specifically for him. This boat won last year’s solo Route du Rhum-La Banque Postale from St Malo to Guadeloupe and lead the 2008-9 Vendée Globe and also the 2009 edition of this race but finished neither. The British skipper partnered Roland Jourdain to second place in this race in 2003 on Jourdain’s Sill and has set two outright 24 hour distance records during his career in IMOCA Open 60’s.
The partnership with Spain’s vastly experienced Guillermo Altadill – who has eight round the world races on his CV including record breaking maxi multiuhulls as well as the development of this IMOCA Open 60 – has proven an inspired choice. Altadill raced the first Barcelona World Race on the boat but had to retire but knows the design well and has hundreds of thousands of ocean racing miles under his belt.
Hugo Boss lead the race for nearly 24 hours before becoming firmly installed in second place on 7th November. Thereafter having built a solid lead on third place, the leading duo were never challenged.
First quotes:
Alex Thomson:
It has been a long day, fantastic to finish in second place for sure. It was very enjoyable and Guillermo did a great job. It was difficult race but I think we are both agreed that it is better to go the hard way than sit for two days with the sails going flap.
Physically it was not too bad for us, the big thing for us was that we did not sleep very much.
Guillermo Altadill : Just normal damage, the boat was perfect in these conditions When we were sailing the first week it was awesome.
Alex:
We sailed together since May and we trained before on the Juan K boat which is like 100 times harder than this boat, it was easy compared to the other one and Guillermo is a fantastic sailor who has done more miles than any of us put together I think we got on well. We are both happy to say what we think and we had no problem with that.
Guillermo: I think we are more similar in character and Alex has the solo experience so we have very complementary experiences, a double handed is still having a lack of people.
Alex:
We took a similar strategy and ended up in the same place. For us this boat lacks a little pace. We were really just waiting for an opportunity, hoping there would be an opportunity close to here, but there wasn’t. They put too many miles on JP Dick and Jeremie sailed a fantastic race, three times winner – bravo.
Guillermo:
When we come out of the second low we were first, which was good, when you play hard and come out on top, that feels good and then the worst was probably this last day, the last 150 miles have been horrible, you did not know what the wind was going to do.
Alex:
We always thought it was possible to win the race. When you take the risk to go into the hard weather you are always a little nervous and it does not look very good. We had one small breakage which maybe cost us 20-30 miles but I don’t think the boat had the pace to beat Virbac Paprec 3. if they had sailed a different strategy then maybe we could have won.
Alex:
I am ecstatic. A big thank you to Guillermo.
The race of Hugo Boss
The Transat Jacques Vabre of Alex Thomson and Guillermo Altadill carries the early hallmarks of a duo finding their feet together, never having done an ocean race together as duo and only having had the boat for 12 days on the water before the start in Le Havre on 2nd November.
So they start relatively conservatively leaving the Channel in sixth and seventh place, concentrating on being with the main pack, pacing themselves initially. As the pack passed to the south of Ireland they were seventh of the 13 starters.
As PRB, Safran and Virbac Paprec held slightly north, Hugo Boss was still just to the south of them having risen to fourth, chasing Chéminées Poujoulat.
Going through the initial high pressure ridge they were well positioned, still not extreme but then made their move progressively with Virbac Paprec 3 NE of the Azores setting up for the successive big low pressure systems. They are rewarded with the race lead between the 6th and 7th of November. Rivals Cheminées Poujoulat and PRB suffer dmage and have to retire. And the pack have stayed south at the Azores high pressure to try and find trade winds and initially lose. From there it becomes a two boat drag race across the Atlantic. Hugo Boss hang relentlessly to the wake of Virbac-Paprec 3, some 35-45 miles behind.
By the entrance to the Caribbean the gap has only stretched to 82 miles and at the finish today, Hugo Boss was approximately 112 miles behind the race winners.
Thomson and Altadill reported no major problems with the boat, finishing with a unharmed complete sail inventory. After the first low pressure system they had a couple of hours downtime after they broke a lazy jack and consequently had to replace a mainsail batten, apart from a computer gremlin or two, it has been an uneventful race.
Thomson has commented how tired they both have been, a consequence of not knowing the boat well and so being more on edge, the physical need to push incredibly hard with a boat which is not rated as one of the quickest in the fleet and also the fact the boat is not well fitted out to facilitate good rest.
After retiring from the 2008-9 Vendée Globe and then the 2009 Transat Jacques Vabre with hull damage NE of the Azores and missing out on the 2010-11 Barcelona World Race when his infant son was diagnosed with a heart condition, this is the first major IMOCA Open 60 race that Thomson has finished since spring 2008 when he finished second behind Jean Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall.
Press Conference Quotes:
Quotes:
Was there more pressure to perform this time, this was a race you had to finish?
I don’t think that the pressure to perform or finish was very much different to what it was in the last race. Everyone is aware that the last four years for us have been very tough with incidents that have not been very good. As I have said before it used to be about winning, then it became about finishing, then it just became about starting! So to finish this race in second place I am over the moon, just over the moon.
So what does it mean to you and the team?
It means the world to me, to have everything that has happened and now to finish second in this race is just means the world to the team. Everyone has worked so hard for four years to finally have some reward for four years hard work, I can tell you the team are in the office and half are here, they are dinking champagne, so we are all very happy.
Describe how you came to the change of strategy, pairing up with Guillermo and choosing this boat over your other boat?
There was not a change of strategy to go with Guillermo. Guillermo was fully on board with us since May this year after doing the Giraglia together. We decided to sail together and Guillermo really helped with helping us to rationalise the decision to go with another boat for this race, because we felt we would perform better in this race and in the single handed race back and so we are very grateful to Guillermo helping to make this decision.
He is no stranger to saying what he thinks, he is not afraid to say what he thinks, and that is one of his big strengths for sure. I am very grateful and the team are very grateful for his input this year.
And you are both passionate characters what conversations did you have pre-start to pre-empt any potential flashpoints?
In terms of our partnership we had no conversations before the race about how we would make this relationship work. I think we are fairly similar in characters. If we think something then we can’t stop ourselves from saying it. But we are both pretty much able to take what anybody says and be able to give back. For me it is much better to be in a situation where you can challenge the other person, and for the other person to be able to respond and there being no upset. Both of that have done that through the race. For sure we have had harsh words, we have had good words and all the way along the way we have been positive and constructive. I think that is what makes a good partnership.
Today, the final three or four hours were painfully slow and indeed the last 24 hours were not easy, how do you deal with that at the end of a long, intense race?
Today was OK. This morning when the 0330hrs sched came in and we were 80 miles in front of Banque Populaire, then for us it was done. There was a little moment of worry when we were becalmed for two or three to four hours when we were a bit becalmed. But the last two or three days have been difficult with Banque Populaire and Macif coming in to us. We seemed to be in a situation where we were losing to Virbac Paprec 3 and losing to Macif and Banque Populaire. And so we just talked about the strategy of trying to cover, where was the best place to cover from and so we invested in the west, and at times it looked difficult and we were worried. But for sure we sailed the right strategy.
It looked in some respects that you sailed slightly differently to before, is that a fair assessment?
To be honest I don’t think we sailed any different to any other race I have done. Two years ago we took the strong option we went to the north and ended up with a broken boat. This time we looked at the option of going south and avoiding the storm. There aas no gain there. The routing said go west and there was a small feeling or trepidation inside me, the worry of another broken boat. But at the end of the day you have got to go for it, we are trying to win a yacht race here, and if that means going through some hardship then you have to put a little bit of risk, then you go for it. This time was different from two years ago. Two years ago the low pressure was there for a long time and the waves were horrendous. This time the pressure system came so quickly it was really there a lot of wind, but the waves were not there. The passage to the north was not as bad as it was two years ago.
And what makes you able to sail an IMOCA Open 60 so quick, you both did a good job of holding on to what most would consider has proven the fastest IMOCA Open 60 over the course?
In this race there are two people on board the boat and I would say that Guillermo is better at making the boat go faster than I am, and so he works really hard on deck to make sure the boat was going fast. In the world records sense I used to have two, but Virbac Paprec 3 have taken one, hopefully not the other, and I think that is about a consequence of opportunity, being in the right place with flat water. In this race having Guillermo on board was a good weapon. He worked really hard and he had the added benefit of knowing the boat well and making it go very fast, I was a bit outgunned a bit having probably sailed less than 300 miles on this boat before the start. And, amazingly, all these boats are so very different, the four IMOCA Open 60’s I have had, this is totally different to the others. So sailing with Guillermo I have learned what it likes and doesn’t like. And that makes a big difference.
And so was there a point when you yearned for the other boat?
Sailing downwind in breeze. Every boat has good points and bad points. This boat is very hard to sail downwind in breeze. You cant leave it on the pilot, you have to drive, and there is no comfortable driving position. And it is really tough. To be honest we could not match the pace of Virbac Paprec 3, but to be honest to stay as close as we did you have to be able to drive downwind 100% of the time. It is hard.
What can you do to improve the boat?
This boat was designed in 2005 and we are working with Farr Yacht Design to try and figure out. I think I said before that the great thing about this race is that we sailed against all the boats in very very similar conditions. The first night we were alongside Virbac Paprec 3, Macif and we were alongside Cheminées Poujoulat which is undoubtedly the quickest boat reaching, and so we have really calibrated where we are with this boat. So being able to go back with that information to Farr allows us to understand where we need to be stronger and we will be talking to them in coming weeks and hopefully we can make some improvements at the beginning of next year.
For the B2B we can’t do much other than make sure the boat is ready, we are going to be pushed for time to get the boat ready. Upwind we feel good, in light airs we don’t feel too bad and in the stronger airs, reaching we need to be a bit quicker so we will be working on that.
Ranking at 05.00 French Time:
IMOCA
1 - Virbac-Paprec 3 (Jean-Pierre Dick - Jérémie Beyou) : arrived on Friday 18 November at 9h 15min and 34 sec
2 - Hugo Boss (Alex Thomson - Guillermo Altadill) : arrived on Saturday 19 November at 0h 20min
3 - Banque Populaire (Armel Le Cléac'h - Christopher Pratt) : about to arrive
Multi50
1 - Actual (Yves Le Blevec - Samuel Manuard) : 219,1 miles from finish line
2 - Maitre Jacques (Loïc Fequet - Loïc Escoffier) : 349,7 miles to leader
Class40
1 - Aquarelle.com (Yannick Bestaven - Eric Drouglazet) : 1278,9 miles from finish line
2 - ERDF Des Pieds et des Mains (Damien Seguin - Yoann Richomme) : 154 miles to leader
3 - 40 Degrees (Hannah Jenner - Jesse Naiwark) : 255,4 miles to leader
www.transat-jacques-vabre.com