Italian Beccaria leads Class40 with 115 miles to Lorient after tough first night.

It has been a very difficult night for the 40 footers, with very gusty winds and big, unruly seas especially through the Channel Islands, explaining in part the loss of the rig on Crédit Mutuel, one of the pre-race favourites. Disappointed co-skippers Ian Lipinski and Antoine Carpentier arrived safely into Cherbourg around 0800hrs UTC after dismasting in the Channel Islands around 0021hrs this morning.
From on board fourth placed Amarris, Achille Nebout, reported early this morning, 

“These were the most violent 24 hours I have experienced on a sailing boat. Lots of wind, 30-35 knots, but above all some heavy seas around the Alderney tidal race, where we slammed a lot. It was impressive and we couldn’t really do anything. It’s calmed down now and we are managing to sleep and eat a bit, but it is still tough. We’re trying to get through this part without any problems. It is not this stretch to Lorient that will decide the outcome of the Transat Jacques Vabre, but we could lose the race here, as we saw with one of the favourites. One thing for sure is we are going to be worn out after just 40 hours of sailing.”

Beccaria called in this morning saying, "We have a few problems with our satellite antenna. We hope to get that sorted, before the race starts again. This leg maybe short but it is very intense. We had a fantastic start. Probably the best I have ever seen with boats flying at 20 knots. But after that it was very hard. We had to keep changing tack in 30-knot winds. But I’m pleased as I had seen before in the Fastnet we could do well in these conditions, but here with the whole fleet, it was great. We both have a few minor injuries. Stacking at the bow is a wild affair. I banged my knee when bringing down the J1. Nico banged his ribs and legs against the bulkhead.

Britons Brian Thompson and Alister Richardson on Tquila are 13^th this morning, Germany’s young rookie duo Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink on Sign For Com are 20^th. The leading boat should stop into Lorient at around midnight. 

UPDATED....Brian Thompson reported, "It was an exciting start and we had a great start. There were some problems at the mark because I suppose for some people two handed you just can’t tack very quickly, especially in that wind and sea. It is shame about the boats which had to go back I hope they get back into the race. It was really windy off the west end of the Cherbourg peninsula, with 40 kts of wind, and half an hour before that we were under Code Zero in 15kts going. So we had a lot of sail changes to do. Alderney was windy again. We went north there and it was OK. Our big problem is our ballast tanks started leaking and Al had to be down below for an hour pumping out all the water from the ballast which had leaked out. So we could not tack because if the boat had gone level it would have flooded the engine with that much water in the boat. Since then we have not been able to use our ballast tanks at all. We are in the group which is fine, there is bright sunshine, 20kts of wind and it is quite warm.