The hours pass and Maxi Banque Populaire gets ever closer to victory in the Transat Jacques Vabre. A little over 1,100 miles from Fort de France, Armel Le Cléac’h and Sébastien Josse are giving nothing away to their most dangerous pursuer. The pair even increased their lead over SVR Lazartigue, clocked in on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. at 139.7 miles. François Gabart and Tom Laperche do not seem able to regularly reach the leading tandem expected on Sunday on the West Indian island. But nothing is a foregone conclusion, the damage that occurred to Maxi Edmond de Rothschild on Friday shows to what extent giant trimarans remain fragile in the event of an encounter with an UFO. Charles Caudrelier and Erwan Israel are battling with a slow boat to save their third place, 434.6 miles from the leader. Their podium seems secure if the situation does not worsen on the winning multihull of the last Route du Rhum. Sodebo Ultim 3 is at 715.6 miles at the foot of the podium and Actual Ultim brings up the rear of the ranking at 855.8 miles.
Among the IMOCAs, the route strategies allowed a redistribution of the cards in the ranking. Teamwork.net of Justine Mettraux and Julien Villion took power by betting on a route to the west, ahead of Groupe Dubreuil of Sébastien Simon and Iker Martinez, 19.5 miles away who also opted for this choice. A daring strategy compared to the entire fleet remaining on a route further east. Initiatives Cœur (Samantha Davies and Jacques Bouttell) are 117.3 miles ahead of two favorites, Paprec Arkéa (Yoann Richomme and Yann Eliès) and Charal of Jérémie Beyou and Franck Cammas, leader since the start from Le Havre.
In the Ocean Fifty where only three boats are fighting for victory after the three retirements in this category), Solidaires in the peloton continues its solo ride with Thibaut Vauchel-Camus and Quentin Vlamynck on board. They have a comfortable lead of 171 miles over Realités (Fabrice Cahierc and Aymeric Chappellier). Finally, the Class40s have almost all passed the Strait of Gibraltar and it is Achille Nebout in the company of Gildas Mahé (Amarris) who still leads the way. dances 34.4 miles ahead of Café Joyeux of Nicolas D’estais and Leo Debiesse.
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