La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro - The Race Within The Race

La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro race village © Alexis Courcoux

La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro race village © Alexis Courcoux

The second leg of La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro starts from Saint Brieuc on Sunday at 1400hrs local time. The 520 nautical miles leg across the Bay of Biscay to Rïa de Muros-Noia looks to be a relatively light downwind stage, something of a contrast to the 30 kts cross Channel sprint which opened Leg 1.

Although the passage across the notorious Bay is some 370 nautical miles the exit along the north Brittany coast to Ushant will immediately ask questions of the 36 solo skippers, strong tides, rocks, islets, headlands transition zones, it is a typical La Solitaire championship playing field at the highest level, one where the smallest opening mistake can be expensive.

Preparation for Leg 2 is ongoing. The organisation provides three physiotherapists who are fully booked through the day, easing cramped, knotted muscles and stiff joints.

Eric Peron, solo skipper of Finistère Mer Vent explains, "On a stage the body just remains in tension for three of four days. Then when you lie down back on land then it is usual for everything to seize up. I dont have much of a recovery protocol per se. But I take it very easy, go to sleep early, watch what I eat, no hard to digest things like cold meat, no beer, and I do one session each day with the physio. That is good for the body and for the head."

"It may feel long, slow and hard but in reality times goes in like a bullet all the way to Saint Gilles. Reovery is decisive." so says Yann Eliès, the three times winner of La Solitaire, back on his home turf where he grew up and still has family and friends. He highlights the physical challenge, "There are still 1200 miles to go, two crossings of the Bay of Biscay and it might be the final sprint which is decisive. It is all ahead of the skippers and you need to keep focused and hold on to the hunger to do well."

Second on Stage 1 Charlie Dalin (Skipper Macif 2015) says of his programme through until the start: "The race now is to recover. We cannot store up sleep but on the other hand it is easy to get tired, fatigued. So, me, I sleep all I can." Teammate Martin Le Pape suggests, "The body is like a battery, on the race course it discharges like a phone and on land you have to recharge it. With the Macif team we don't have to worry about anything. We have our preparateur, a press attache and our cook. We eat well and properly. We don't have to go and wait in restaurants. Tonight I will go for a bit of a run and I already have my head in the next stage."

Franco-American Nathalie Criou (Richmond Yacht Club Foundation) was due to join the fleet in Saint-Brieuc in the early evening, just after the official prizegiving. After resting in Roscoff she was making her way to the Stage 1 finish port following her decision to abandon yesterday from the leg from Le Havre having run out of time to reach the finish line on time. The determined French born 44 year old silicon valley executive and entrepreneur turned sailor, adventurer and endurance racer entered Le Solitaire last year to celebrate her tenth year in remission from cancer.

When they talk of the luck of the Irish it is usually associated with an unexpected positive outcome. But for French based Irish La Solitaire URGO Figaro skipper, 30-year-old Tom Dolan, the good fortune which should sail with him thanks to his Celtic DNA abandoned ship almost as soon as he started his first, crucial attempt at the French solo multi-stage race last Sunday.

His starboard spreader attachment on his Smurfit Kappa casting failed just minutes - seconds even - after passing the Radio France Buoy, some 90 minutes into the three and a half day 465 nautical miles stage to Saint Brieuc via Wolf Rock.

Reflex action saved the mast. He immediately called Race Director Frances Le Goff to confirm on the rules governing fixing quickly and returning to the course, only to be told bluntly that competitors can only return to the start port to make repairs only if they have not passed this first mark of the course.

Dolan was, or is, staking a great deal of his sailing future on making the podium as top Bizuth or Rookie in the race. Having had to abandon the stage, as did seven others of the 36 who started, gives him an arbitrary first leg time that is 11hrs 54 minutes 36seconds behind the winner, or 11hrs 37minutes behind rookie division leader Thomas Cardrin.

In normal La Solitaire offshore racing deficit behind his target represents a lifetime. The top 20 soloists finished in an 18 minute flurry on Wednesday night. But stranger things have happened. "That is it. As we say, 'The ball's burst. Game over." Was Dolan's tacit assessment on his return to Le Havre.

Now, as he paces the dock in picture postcard Saint Brieuc – desperate to get going again - he is more resigned, putting a brave face on things. His dry, irrepressible Irish wit is helping him cope. "There are what ifs and what ifs but I am just trying not to go there. You can say what if I'd dropped the rig and checked everything I might have seen something but you can say what if it had happened in 40kts on the first night in the dark, I'd have no mast and not be here. So I am just going to get on with it." Dolan says

His story is so different to the French pathway into what is essentially a national sport, certainly around the towns and ports La Solitaire visits. He did not grow up sailing an optimist or a Laser and move on to the regional and national training 'Poles' He was brought up on a farm some in the heart of County Meath, half way between Dublin and the border with Northern Ireland. His father had done some sailing in England with a friend and decided to buy a 14ft wooden dinghy.

"Somehow he got the idea to buy a little boat, a wooden Marauder." He recounts, "We sailed it on a lake for a bit. But where I lived there was very bad roads and we hit a pothole the trailer stuck a hole in it. That killed it. After the famous pothole we never got round to fixing it." He smiles at the memory. " I gave up at 13 or 14 because where I am from it is all Irish Football. I played a bit but was too slow. Sailing was the most uncool thing you could possibly do where I came from. I did a course up in Dublin when I was 13 at one of the yacht clubs there. I arrived and they all had mobile phones and I did not have one and they were all laughing at me because I did not have a phone. I was such a country boy I thought 'F## this. If this is what a sailing club is about I don't want anything to do with it. Then I really gave up. "

Jobless and on the dole (receiving state benefit) he joined a friend going to college in Dublin, choosing and outdoor education management course. A volunteering job with Glenans in Baltimore in the West of Ireland, ultimately lead him to France when the centre went bankrupt and it was re-financed by the famous French sailing school organisation.

"When I was on the dole and I used to secretly watch the Volvo Ocean Race and when I saw the college course I thought 'I'll do that." It was a three year course and you had to do work experience. By then I did want to go on bigger boats and so I went to Glenans in Baltimore in the west of Ireland. You volunteer, they teach you but you don't get paid. To start with I was scraping antifouling and fixing stuff. And when they were busy I taught. When I finished the course they offered me a job as a manager."

It was while at Glenans in France that he got his first real offshore racing experience, answering an advertisement on the Mini 650 class website for crew,"In 2012 I answered an advert on the Mini website, someone looking for a crew for the doublehanded Fastnet. It turned out he had only done a two week sailing course at Glenans and had bought the boat. It was gas (funny). He had bought a Pogo 1. I turned up and he did not know what he was doing at all. He told me basically, 'right you have to do everything, manage everything. It was a good craic. We came last. Very last."

The next year he did the same thing but with an older gentleman who had done the MiniTransat in 1993. He had stopped to be with his wife who was an artist. She had just died and her wish was that her husband went back to racing his Mini 650.

"He was a lovely fella. At the end of it he said he would lend me the boat next year and in exchange I fixed it up. It was a deal and I could do a season on the Mini. I worked at the same time through that season. And then I decided late that season I wanted to do the Mini Transat." From there his passion for racing and the Mini grew and grew. The first time he got a little bit of sponsorship and some crowd funding.

"When I had come back from the Transat my dad died in 2011. His inheritance came in and a I blew it all on a brand new Mini. Every penny. I could have invested it. I could have gone back to college. But I said I want a new Mini. I blew it all on a Pogo 3. I did not have enough to have the whole boat and so I sent the winter installing the electronics, doing all that. I won the first race I did on my own. At that point I decided I wanted to go hell for leather. I did two seasons on the Pogo 3 and got a few good results and then got here into the Figaro. Here I am. " He has worked hard for his successes, finishing fourth in that Mini Transat in 2015, the French media named him L'Irlandais volant for his speed. Sixth last year and fourth overall in the French circuit championship, before moving this season to the Figaro. In his first race, the AG2R he and French co-skipper Tanguy Borroulec, finished top rookies and 11th overall. His strengths are sailing fast and enjoying the challenge, he has worked hard on his meteo strategy and does some route planning and coaching with Mini sailors, but with no real fleet racing background it is the starts and short course, boat for boat stuff where he is weaker.

"Am I quick? I don't know. Not in the Figaro. We will see." he muses, "This was such a one off thing to win the rookie division was the goal, now I will just have to go out and do well on the stages."

The backing of Smurfit Kappa, Dublin based European leader in corrugated packaging, came about through a friend who helped work on his sponsorship search. With a strong market in France where he trains with Lorient Grand Large, the relationship has flourished on the back of his Mini class successes.

"When we went it to see them (Smurfit Kappa) they had no-one interested in sailing but we showed them my video, told them all about the Mini and what I was doing and they must have liked what they saw," he enthuses.

La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro Finish deltas Stage 1: (French unless stated)

1 - Anthony Marchand - Groupe ROYER - Secours Populaire finished- 22:54:28
2 - Thierry Chabagny - Gédimat + 3,06min
3 - Charlie Dalin - Skipper Macif 2015 + 3,38 min
4 - Sebastien Simon - Bretagne CMB Performance + 4,25 min
5 - Alan Roberts - Seacat Services GBR + 6,13 min
6 - Erwan Tabarly - Armor Lux + 7,33 min
7 - Hugh Brayshaw - KAMAT GBR + 8,32 min
8 - Alexis Loison - Custo Pol + 9,50 min
9 - Tanguy Le Turquais - Everial + 9,59 min
10 - Xavier Macaire - Groupe SNEF + 10,59 min
11 - Pierre Leboucher - Guyot Environnement + 11,08 min
12 - Martin Le Pape- Skipper MACIF 2017 + 12,54 min
13 - Corentin Douguet - NF Habitat + 13,30 min
14 - Vincent Biarnes - Baie de St Brieuc + 14,43 min
15 - RonanTreussart - Les Perles de Saint Barth + 15,57 min
16 - Benjamin Dutreux - Sateco - Team Vendée Formation + 16,33 min FIRST ROOKIE
17- Thomas Cardrin – Team Vendée Formation + 17,05 min
18 – Romain Baggio – Maison Meneau – les Marins de la lune + 17,56 min FIRST AMATEUR
19 – Pierre Quiroga - Skipper Espoir CEM CS + 18, 04 min
20 – Damien Cloarec - Saferail + 18, 06 min
21 – Loîs Berrehar – Bretagne CMB Espoir + 21,20 min
22 - Justine Mettraux - TeamWork SUI + 22,38 min (+5 mins penalty)
23 – Sophie Faguet - Corben Porsche + 26,49 min
24 - Eric Perron - Finistère Mer Vent + 32,28 min
25- Sebastien Petithuguenin - Le Défi ensemble contre le cancer + 36,38 min
26 - Cecile Laguette - Eclisse + 2h 24, 06 min
27 - Joan Mulloy Taste The Atlantic a Seafood Journey + 4h 06, 05 min
28 - Pierre-Louis Attwel - Laboratoires Mayoly + 09h 54, 36 min

Stage 1 ABDs:

29 - Antoine Calliste - Immonew + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Thomas Dolan - Smurfit Kappa IRL + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Eric Delamare - Région Normandie + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Gilads Mahé - Breizh Cola + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Nathalie Criou - Richmond Yacht Club Foundation USA + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Nick Cherry - Redshift GBR + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Amaiur Alfaro - Evi Natutika Com Eol Eus + 11h 54, 36 min
29 - Frederic Duthil - Technique Voile + 11h 54, 36 min

Dolan ready to 'right the wrongs' in Figaro leg two (extra report from Tom Dolan Racing)

Ireland's Tom Dolan is set to re-join the Solitaire du Figaro fleet for leg two determined to make amends for his forced exit in the opening stage.

Dolan was left with no choice but to retire from the 570-mile sprint from Le Havre in Normandy to St Brieuc in Brittany via Wolf Rock when a key part of his rigging broke an hour after the start.

It was a cruel blow for Dolan, who was among the favourites for the coveted title of first rookie after a successful 2018 season.

Although his dream of lifting the rookie trophy has taken a hit, the 30-year-old, from Kells, County Meath, says he will throw everything at the remaining three legs.

"These things happen, but it's really hard to swallow after so many months of preparation," said Dolan, who returned to Le Havre to carry out repairs before sailing to St Brieuc.

"I'm entering unchartered territory – it's never happened to me before, I've never had to drop out of a race like in leg one.

"I'll go into the next leg 12 hours behind the leaders which will be hard to scrape back. Now I just have to try to do well in the remaining three legs. I feel like I have something to prove to myself now."

Leg two will take the 36 skippers – including eight race newcomers – 520 miles through the Bay of Biscay to Ria de Muros-Noia near Spain's famous Cape Finisterre.

"It's looking light and fluky to get out of the English Channel and then it'll be downwind through Biscay," Dolan added.

"The further ahead you are the better the breeze will be so it's going to be vital to be in the front group. At the same time, the arrival into Spain is always really tricky and you could see a 10-hour lead completely wiped out."

Dolan wasn't the only one to suffer breakages in leg one, and will be among eight skippers going into leg two desperate to move off the bottom of the rankings.

"I've got nothing to lose now so I can go hell for leather," Dolan said. "If you look into leg two as a one-off race I'll go into it much fresher than the other guys, so that's an advantage. I'd much rather it was the other way round through and I was starting this leg tired from an epic leg one though.

"I'm determined to right the wrongs, I'm not giving up. I'm itching to get going now, I just want to go sailing."