In Fort-de-France
What a suspenseful finale! The Yoann Richomme-Yann Eliès tandem took second place in the Transat Jacques Vabre in the Imoca category shortly after sunrise in the bay of Fort-de-France on Sunday.
Paprec Arkéa, who completed his Atlantic crossing in 12 days 01:41:16, crossed the finish line at 6:11:16, maintaining a tiny advantage over the Sam Goodchild-Antoine Koch duo who arrived nine minutes later, at 6:20:32 a.m. after a crossing in 12 days 01:50:32.
The two monohulls face off in a high-tension finale in the bay of Fort-de-France with very light winds putting the sailors’ nerves to the test. “We had a great time! Since we came into contact with For the Planet, we had to tear ourselves away to try to distance them. We succeeded several times but nothing was easy. We struggled in the final straight to regain a few miles, we knew it was going to be tense in the lee of the island. As they were opportunistic, they tried to cut it as short as possible… Fortunately, we managed to stay ahead by a narrow margin! This race had to be finished. The start was intense, we could have broken everything… What’s great is that we’re bringing back a boat in great condition!”, commented Richomme, relieved to have saved second place.
“It’s a lovely birthday present. almost a hold up. If we had been told that we would be third at the start, we would have signed in advance. This is a third place as a team. The collective that we set up with Thomas shows the strength of that,” reacted Sam Goodchild, revealing that the tandem had encountered “two or three small technical glitches.”
A little more than three hours earlier, Thomas Ruyant and Morgan Lagravière on For People had crossed the finish line as winners, as in 2021 and after 11 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes and 31 seconds spent at sea covering 5,425 miles at average speed of 19 knots.