Yachts & Yachting – August 2019

Y

es, I’m an addict. ere,

I said it. Track cocaine.

I can’t help myself. Long

coloured lines and trails

get me going. e more

the better. And let me tell you, with

47 boats competing in La Solitaire

URGO Le Figaro, loads of slow, sticky

transitions, high highs and big drops

for seemingly no good reason, the 50th

edition – the rst with the new Figaro

Beneteau 3s – has been one hell of a ride.

is particular race has been total

immersion. e attachment has been

incredible, maybe even heightened all

the more because the solo racers get so

little information while racing. Unlike

the Vendée Globe and the Volvo, they

are cut o from the always-on internet.

ey don’t get GRIB les for routing,

they get audio, read forecasts for each

active section of the race course over

the VHF and they get their position

reports by VHF which are relative to the

leader – there are no lat/long positions.

Meantime on the tracker, updated

every 15 minutes, you can see every

slow down, every acceleration, every

tack and gybe, points when guys fall

asleep and go o course. And what

made it all much worse for the sailors

with the new Figaro Beneteau 3s is that

the AIS antennas now have a range of

about two to three miles. Before on

the Figaro 3, sometimes you could see

15 miles, so it would be more about

monitoring the pack on the AIS, staying

in the lead bunch and then making a

break or pressing in the nal sprint.

is race was all the more dramatic

because some of the losses were massive.

Top seeds on the rst leg went west

in a group and some lost eight hours.

On a race which has been won and

lost by 13 seconds aer four legs, 13

or 14 days and 2,000 miles of racing,

you would imagine there is no coming

back from an eight-hour decit.

But, speaking as a tracker addict

who – for professional reasons only, of

course – will wake and check at 2am

and 4am – there could be more done

to bring the course and the race even

La Solitaire URGO Le Figaro made for addictive viewing...I may need

to go cold turkey after a serious case of tracker overdose

Andi Robertson

YACHTS

with the peloton. Gautier is the governor

in my book, along with Loïck. Alain

was doing this race as a 17-year-old.

Not many people will recall that it

used to be sailed in half-tonners. Is

the Figaro Beneteau 3 the modernday

equivalent? Absolutely not. e half-

tonners would race in the level-rating

events, crewed, and do the Figaro. at

was a proper dual-purpose raceboat.

But then the new Figaro Beneteau 3 had

the skippers loving the long downwinds

and reaches because, sometimes, they

were reaching IMOCA speeds – 18, 19,

20 knots for sustained periods when the

foils really work. A lot of the other times,

in lighter winds, they are a hindrance.

And please don’t anyone call it ‘foiling’.

I don’t doubt that next year, normal

service will be resumed. Talk is of

moving the race away from June because

this summer’s unpredictable weather

patterns were just too random. Many

people say “it’s the same for everyone”

but this particular race there were

numerous small low-pressure bubbles

that developed which were not on the

forecasts before the eet docked out.

So plenty of food for thought.

Here is hoping more international

sailors take up the challenge.

Few people

can match Andi

Robertson’s insight

into the big boat

world, both in the

UK and globally

more alive, for not too much more

additional investment. I absolutely

believe there is no cheating in the eet

now, nor would there be in the future;

it is too small and ercely proud a

community for an individual to secrete

a smartphone somewhere. But would

adding more layers of good information

to the tracker increase the pressure

to cheat by too great a margin?

One thing would be, at least, the

tracker giving projected General

Classication position at each waypoint.

I know one or two would like to see

wind speed and direction transmitted

from the boats, but to at least have

the windspeed and direction from the

guard boats – and there are usually

three in dierent parts of the eet –

would enhance the experience. Too

oen this time you were looking at

the forecasted winds overlaid on the

tracker and they bore no resemblance

to what the boats were getting.

It was, and is, a fantastic race, totally

engaging. And seeing older guys such

as Alain Gautier, Loïck Peyron and

Michel Desjoyeaux back in the fold was

wonderful. ey had their moments up

at the front but they were also back in

the cheap seats as oen as they were up

On the tracker you see everything, even the points

when the sailors fall asleep and go o course

Above

Contenders in this

year’s La Solitaire

URGO Le Figaro

ALEXIIS COURCOUX

16 August 2019 Yachts & Yachting yachtsandyachting.co.uk