Atlantic Racing Update

As mentioned above, the 12th biennial Transat AG2R has come to a thrilling conclusion in Gustavia, St. Barthélemy as the top four one-design Beneteau Figaro IIs finished within two hours of one another after more than three weeks at sea. The racing for first and second was close with SAFRAN-Guy Cotten beating Skipper MACIF by just one hour and six minutes. But the racing for third and fourth was even closer, with 30 Corsaires nipping La Cornouaille and the great Roland Jourdain by just 87 seconds after 3,890 miles! The doublehanded TransAtlantic race still rages on with three of the biggest names in the sport still fighting hard for position, separated by just six miles in the rankings as three-time Figaro champ and three-time Vendée Globe vet Jean Le Cam leads Kito de Pavant and the great Michel Desjoyeaux with some 150 miles left to go.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, the girls of Team SCA led by famed solo sailor Samantha Davies are smashing across the Atlantic in their pink Volvo 65. Sailing from Lanzarote, Spain to Newport, Rhode Island before sailing back to Europe as a dress rehearsal for this winter’s Volvo Ocean Race, just one American has made the cut: Olympian and Match Race champ Sally Barkow.

Speaking of Spain, the newly-dubbed IMOCA Ocean Masters World Championship kicks off June 1 with the inaugural New York- Barcelona race. For the first time in the 23-year history of the IMOCA class, an American skipper is in it to win it with arguably the fastest boat in the fleet. Ryan Breymaier has been called upon to fill in for HUGO BOSS skipper Alex Thomson, who will sit the race out as his wife brings his second child into the world. Breymaier will sail with fellow Barcelona World Race vet Pepe Ribes on HB’s new-to-them VPLP-designed Open 60, formerly known as Virbac- Paprec 3.