Vendée Arctique | Day 6 Report
After six days at sea in the Vendée Arctique-Les Sables d’Olonne, Francesca is sailing fast downwind onboard 11th Hour Racing in a north-northwesterly airstream, at a position about 200 nautical miles due west of Cape Wrath on the northwest tip of mainland Scotland.
She is still holding fifth position out of the eight skippers still racing and this morning was about 255 miles behind the longtime leader, Sam Goodchild (MACIF Santé Prévoyance), who is entering the North Channel between Northern Ireland and southern Scotland.
Francesca was 30 miles behind fourth-placed Violette Dorange (Initiatives-Coeur) and just a couple more behind Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande MAPEI), though those two boats were separated laterally by nearly 90 miles.
© Francesca Clapcich | 11th Hour Racing
This morning we spoke to the Team Francesca Clapcich Powered by 11th Hour Racing co-skipper and performance manager, Alberto Bona, the Italian former Class 40 and Mini sailor, who has been following Francesca’s progress with interest over the past five days.
He has been impressed by his skipper’s performance so far and says Francesca may yet have opportunities before the finish at Les Sables d’Olonne, France, to catch the boats in front.
“The end of the race looks really complicated,” said Bona. “If you go west of Ireland, you have less wind. If you go inside, you have more wind. Then, after the channel between Ireland and Great Britain, there is a high pressure over the finishing zone of the racecourse, so anything can happen.”
The route through the Irish Sea entails a certain amount of risk, with confined waters, commercial shipping and fishing boats to avoid, and strong tidal currents which can kick up a big sea. “There are some risks coming inside the channel – for sure it is a more challenging course,” summarized Bona.
He says Francesca has shown how quickly she is mastering the art of racing an IMOCA alone on what is only her second solo race in the Class, and has remained in touch with a high quality leading group on a complex meteorological course.
“It is a big challenge to manoeuvre these 60-foot IMOCA solo and Francesca is new to this game, but she is progressing very fast, with a lot of training on timings and manoeuvres, because trying to push, and to understand as fast as possible the solo mode on these machines, is not easy,” he explained.
“We mustn’t forget that Sam Goodchild has already got a Vendée Globe under his belt, as has Violette Dorange, while Elodie Bonafous is a very experienced Figaro sailor. Solo racing in the IMOCA class is a new challenge for Francesca, a completely different task, and I think she has been doing great,” he added.
Bona says Francesca has shown in this race how important it has been to manage the boat in tough conditions, as she hunts for the balance between speed and her innate competitiveness, against risking breaking things in a race which – importantly – is a qualifier for the 2028 Vendée Globe.
“Honestly, it is good that she is doing that because if you break the boat, you are not learning any more,” said Bona. “The difficult thing on these boats is that you cannot go full speed all the time. There is a throttle, and you have to play a difficult game of finding the right throttle position for the moment. In Class 40s you can just stay full gas and the boat can take it. Here you cannot do that – you’d break the boat in 20 minutes.
“So it’s finding the right balance,” he added, “and I think it is good that Francesca is trying to understand these limits – in IMOCA racing the skipper and the boat need to know each other.”