The Psaros 40 Cellmen Ardentis, skippered by François Thorens, crossed the halfway mark in the lead after 4h17’26” of racing. He is ahead of Katana, skippered by Alexander De Weck, who suffered a violent swerve shortly beforehand, and Pro Yachting, skippered by Philippe Seguret.
Alexander De Weck, skipper of the Luthi 1090 Katana, who dominated the first half of the race, suffered a sudden lurch (luffing start) off Meillerie during a violent squall, with very poor visibility and gusts of over thirty knots. Her spinnaker fell into the water when she was lowered, followed by the genoa, which was poorly stowed on the foredeck. During the recovery maneuver, the young skipper fell into the water on his horizontally-lying yacht, but managed to climb back aboard under his own power. This cost him half an hour, a lot of energy and the lead of the race to Psaros 40 Cellmen Ardentis.
Katana finally succeeded him 14 minutes later, himself six minutes ahead of the first Psaros 33, Pro Yachting, skippered by Philippe Seguret. MB’s, Carpediem and MSC were next, followed by Justine Mettraux aboard Body & Soul.
As expected, the first half of the race took place in difficult conditions. At 9:30 this morning, 135 sailors were on the starting line, but only two of them have retired at this stage (2:30 pm) despite the difficult conditions, including the unfortunate Arnaud Gavairon at the helm of Psaros 33 Pétrel, who suffered a dismasting.
Weather conditions are gradually calming before the arrival of a new storm front forecast for tonight. Among the lesser-performing yachts, we note the remarkable performances of Hans-Peter Bichelmeier on his Melges 24, Patrick Ducluzaux on the Toucan Gaston 3, the Surprises Kahlua, Malice, Chinook and many others.
With a few rare exceptions, the whole fleet is sailing in a group, and almost all the boats have passed Evian after five hours of racing. So far, it’s been a very fast edition of the Syz Translémanique en Solitaire.
Photo: © EP Médias