In Fort-de-France
Arriving early Sunday morning in Martinique, the duo Yoann Richomme-Yann Eliès took second place in the Imoca category. A performance which was enough for the happiness of the first at the helm of a boat launched this year and which he continues to discover: “Honestly, I don’t think we could win it. There were too many things we didn’t know about this boat, even the first one. Thomas and Morgan had a level of knowledge above us who will come back with notebooks full of notes on how to move these machines which are a little crazy.
The navigator admits, however, that when leaving the Canaries, the crew “believed a little in victory” before quickly realizing that For People (Ruyant-Lagravière) “had a fairly high pace.” Richomme specified that one of the sails used from Madeira was “a little small, so we suffered as soon as the wind dropped below 17 knots. We were in a bit of pain.”
The sailor also indicated that he and his teammate had never really thought about taking the daring northern route taken by Teamwork.net (Justine Mettraux-Julien Villion). “We call them ice ax crampons with their north face (smile). We thought about it for ten seconds and gave it up. It depends on the objectives, ours was to go in the other direction but we thought that Charal was going to do it, it was for them because they go quickly upwind. We’ll see in what condition they arrive, probably rinsed. They didn’t have a great transatlantic experience. But hats off to them for trying.”
